


Sleeping With Roaches

by rubber glue (Ssabishii)



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Aged up characters, Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, David's such a good camp mom ok, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Nihilism, Polyamory, Schizoaffective, Schizophrenia, Sexual Experimenting, domestic abuse, sexual curiosity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-01-08 12:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12254100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ssabishii/pseuds/rubber%20glue
Summary: The roach, however, stays even as its companions feast. Max smiles broken heartedly, heavy eyelids fluttering closed.Enter Max, who comes from an abusive household with parents who just don't want him. Camp camp meant lack of air conditioning, being surrounded by a bunch of other hormone ridden little shits, sucking in stale air. But, his camp experience becomes quite interesting when the roaches keep appearing, along with strange feelings towards these two assholes he guesses he can call his friends.Does everybody see the roaches? Is it normal to feel this way? Or is Max just a fucking nut job with a bone deep sexuality confusion?





	1. .

**Author's Note:**

> so I've been sucked into the abyss of camp camp and can I just say MAX okay that's it that's all I wanted to say also don't expect good or consistent updates lmao

Metal stairs were littered with dog shit and scraps of fast food wrappers. It was fucking revolting and gave off a smell of rot that had settled into the very foundation of the concrete boxes of each apartment, just like the lingering cigarette smoke, cat urine and meth lab stench that shrouded the entire complex like a nasty cloud. Running brown skeleton fingers through his mess of crushed curls, he kicks a dead rat off the edge of the balcony before jiggling the door handle vigorously.

It pops open and the sight that invades his insistently tired, achingly piercing green eyes makes his empty stomach stir uncomfortably. He grinds his teeth, taking a step from one filth directly into another. There's a lump of raw garbage consisting of vomit stained clothes, burnt and broken crack pipes, and the remnants of food right next to the door, so awful to inhale that Max coughs into his fist. His swollen eye twitches uncomfortably as it waters from the stale, sewage air polluting his pink, weak lungs.

There’s a hoard of roaches crawling out from beneath the half open refrigerator as if to greet the boy, though it was probably only because of the fresh stench of rotten flesh that the outside pushes in. They honestly have a serious roach problem, but that's one amid a million. Plus, they don't bother him when he's sleeping so it's fine.

His book bag weighs a ton on his back, but he doesn't trust the contents of this fucking apartment with the contents of this fucking bag. He sniffs and starts towards his room, careful not to step on anything noisily, stepping vigilantly along the edge of the wall, in hopes of not being caught. He rifles through his meager nightstand and pulls out the false bottom, a handful of dirty money, stolen money, pillaged money. His clothes all smell like shit. Everything smells like fucking shit. He stuffs it all in his bag, right next to all his old school supplies. He could eat a fucking cow, he's so hungry. His entire body aches. His mind aches. Somewhere, a small, inconsequential bone hairline fractures and Max blinks wetly as he yanks himself back to his weary feet where he’d been kneeling.

He's already learned to stop expecting his clothes to be clean. Why even waste the quarters getting them washed, why risk having them fucking stolen? The only reason he washes his three outfits once a month is because at some points, he smells so bad that his teachers sit him outside of the classroom with a bullshit excuse like his teeth grinding was distracting people. _Teeth grinding doesn't make noise unless a tooth breaks, fucking wrinkly cunt,_ He thinks to himself as he bitterly shoves his clothes into an open washer, jamming six quarters in. _Eat_ _it_ _up_ , _you_ _stupid_ _bitch_.

A pregnant woman with droopy eyes comes in and curses in Spanish when the old, broken down Lemonade vending machine eats her dollar and dispenses nothing more than a breath of ten year old dust. Max starts nodding off, against his better judgement, to the sounds of the washers turning in sync. When his eyes peel back open, he panics at the sight of someone reaching into his washer, the sight of his few clothes being snatched. He launches himself at the perpetrator and sinks his teeth into a sickeningly pale arm, stays even as the other thrashes violently and hits him.

Something warm and metallic that Max immediately recognizes as blood settles over his tongue and he bites harder. The guy howls in pain before flinging the kid off and bolting, clothes left on the floor. A cold breath is punched out of his chest as the pain explodes in his ribcage, _What a fucking crack head_. There's red in his eyelashes from his head being thrown against the solid basket island in the middle of the room and he pinches his eyes shut hard not to cry, picking himself up from the disgusting ground to collect his clothes at an alarmingly sluggish pace.

The woman from before asks him if he's okay. He points at her stomach. “You live in an apartment complex known for housing prostitutes, drug addicts, and general losers. Worry about your fucking self and your kid, prego.” He throws his bag over his shoulder and walks out before he can catch her expression and before she can respond.

His next destination is the gas station that hides the long strip of complex, the one across from the liquor store that's sandwiched between a shitty Mexican restaurant and a nail salon with a shady vibe to it. He counts his money. He sighs. He won't have enough for the bus ticket if he stuffs his skinny fucking face. “Hurry up, asshole.” The fat guy at the cash register goades.

“Up yours, fucker. You work at a fucking gas station and you look like black Peter Griffin, it's not my fault your life sucks raunchy hooker cunt.”

“You're nine and you look like something an alley cat threw up and you curse better than I do. Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m you in thirty years.”

Max fingers over an expired can of mixed fruits. “Say what you want, I’m still young. Not _nine_ , but young. My life can turn right the fuck around and I can get a chance at a future.” He picks it up and makes his way over to the register. “While you stay here at the bottom of the barrel and rot to fucking shit.”

“Can't argue with that.” The guy’s chin digs into his gullet when he scans the item and a smell like he hadn’t showered in a few weeks follows the movement, smacking Max in the face. “One fifty. Grab an airhead on your way out, I like you.”

“I’m taking two, ass wipe.”

On his way to the bus station, he’s forced to make a complete turnaround with the feeling of cold dread knit between his aching ribs. He’d forgot his shitty little flip phone that was essential to this mission, and hopefully his loser, druggy parents were still asleep. However, nothing can ever go right for Max and when he walks in, he's immediately faced with his dad, who looks pissed as hell.

Fucking fantastically perfect turn of events.

“What the fuck do you want?” He asks, clenching his blue stained hands tight.

“You didn't turn in the god damn form! You little cunt!”

“Yeah, because I’m not drowning in hell water for the three months I’m supposed to be allowed to breath.” He spits back. Max supposes that he should've learned to keep his mouth shut a long time ago, when he figured out that opening his big face hole would only worsen any miniscule conflict.

“I don't give a fuck what you want!” He shoves Max hard and he stumbles backwards, tripping over a box of takeout and landing on his ass. He wipes his swollen eye, the puss from the cut right below it making it seal up, looks away with his gaze downcast to the side. “We can't have you in the house all the goddamn time!”

“Go eat Beth’s pussy, you just don't like me.”

“Yeah, I don't! Nobody fucking does because you're useless, you little fucking faggot! It should've been you who died, you understand?”

His dad throws his arm across the table and all the blunt objects on it are flung at Max. “Whatever. Just do your drugs and conk out so I can go to sleep.”

There's a stretch of unexpected silence that surprises Max. Usually, more things would be thrown, more words that cut like knives exchanged, some harsher injuries added to the growing collection. Instead, his dad throws a crumbled up paper at him. It bounces lazily off his curly hair and rolls beside his thigh.

“Pack your shit. You're going tomorrow.” There's a brief glance at Max’s rapidly paling face. “And don't even fucking think about trying to get out and run away to Grandma’s.” He pulls a tangle of broken pieces and wires out of his pocket. Max’s stomach lurches when he finds that they are the remnants of his phone. His only means of communication with that wretched old woman, that fucking savior.

“I fucking hate you.” He mutters under his breath, curling into the pile of trash with his knees to his chest. “I hate you so much.”

“I'm glad we feel the same way about each other.” His dad pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, blowing the smoke in Max’s direction. “The only difference is, I get three months of no Max and you get three months of shitty summer camp. No air conditioning, sharing a room with thirteen other asshole little kids, being forced into menial activities like arts and crafts, surrounded by pedophile camp counselors. But, your faggot ass would love that last part.”

For the third time that day, he picks himself off the floor even when he desperately wants to stay down. He glares hard, but ultimately doesn't respond. He's just too tired. He barrels into his small room and yanks the cover off the mattress, pulls the drawers out of the nightstand and curls up in them, touches the bruise on his ribs and winces from just the feather light grazes. It's hot, when the rest of his body is cold. His stomach inverts with a hunger growl. _God_ _fucking_ _damnit_. Max thinks with tears running down his face, his soul spilling out of his body like sticky ink, just for him to be forced to suck it all back in the next day.

A roach crawls over to him and he picks it up as he sobs quietly. You learn to be quiet when being loud will get you thrown down the metal stairs with dog shit on them. The roach is a brown color and wriggles it's little legs, so Max fishes the melted remnants of blue airhead out of his pocket and throws it to the other side of the room, and puts his little friend down.

When he drifts off to a sleep that is uncomfortable in a suffocating box, he's awoken to the feeling of hands on his painfully skinny waist and something disgustingly wet between his thighs. He's been pulled onto the cum stained mattress (that's seen many midnight endeavors) and there's that smoky smell of fresh drugs, slurred speaking. He makes his entire tense body go limp and pliant as his dad fucks his thigh gap in a drug induced stupor, breathing hotly into his neck. There's limbs wrapped around him like chains, preventing him from wriggling free. The tears probably never stopped dripping from before, but they are a heavier flow now, painting his face shiny from the moonlight that flits through the panel shades. When his skin is raw and sticky with semen, his dad pulls away and stumbles out of the room.

Max’s roach friend from before chirps at him from the ceiling and he tiredly slides his frustratingly drained green eyes over to him. The critter loses it's grip and falls down onto the bed, searching for more to consume. He pulls the empty, sticky fruit can out of his pocket and throws it to the corner of the room. The roach, however, stays even as its companions feast. Max smiles broken heartedly, heavy eyelids fluttering closed.

He’d much rather be sleeping with these roaches than the one that he called his dad.

 


	2. . self established villainy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Without naming any specifics, I’ll tell you I did something that I probably shouldn't have done before I got on that bus that probably resulted in that. Do I regret it? Fuck no. It was awesome.” That bread was good. Thought it was raisin bread at first.
> 
> “That's extremely obscure and I should look further into that, but I’m. I’m tired. David’s crying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHH I got good comments and this chapter is hecka long so have fun I hope I can keep the longer chapters a COMIN but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ also I get really contemplative when I look at the 'add co-creators' option bc like,,,, nah fam,,,,, only draggin my head my bed and my leg down this,,,,, garbage hole,,,,,,,,, me myself and i in this fire man

The air around him is swampy and humid, making his already ratty hair poof out in a mess of curls and frizz. He's standing next to a dumpster with species of mold unknown to mankind decaying deep inside its ridges, wafting a hideous odor that blends finely with the stench of everything else, but still makes Max feel like he’ll start dry heaving any second. His only saving grace lay tucked away in his meager book bag. Good ol’ faithful. He’d had the same one since elementary. The same bland black. Living the same shitty life.

He stuffs his hand into his pocket and fishes out the flyer. He snorts, god they couldn't have advertised the camp better to his parents. Or maybe it was a joke that those thick skilled idiots didn't fucking understand due to their pea sized brains and lack of comprehension towards the fact that you're supposed to generally enjoy your fucking children. He shoves it back into his pocket as a bus that's tires squeal deafeningly pulls next to the stop, the color a dirty mustard kind with a bus driver that looks like he rapes puppies for fun and probably fucks his own cousins. Max breathes a sigh through his nose and climbs onto the bus, which is thankfully, _blissfully_ , fucking empty.

Honestly, if he was forced to socialize right off the bat, he’d probably end up committing mass homicide by the end of the month. When he closed his eyelids, numbers flickered just beneath. As long as he always remembered this number, he still had a shot at escaping the rotting hell hole of this life. Paper and pen was unreliable and disposable, but Max’s mind was his own. He could choose to never let anybody in if he wanted to, he could never be forced to accept people. Maybe that's why he likes school so much, even if school doesn't really like him. He likes retaining information to push everything else away.

There's a faint tickling sensation on his hand and Max blinks back into awareness, looking down at his hand only to find a multi legged, fat little roach skittering across the caramel colored flesh, pincers clacking. There's a whole line of them up the aisle and they're attacking a half empty grape soda can in the seat across from him. Max scrunches up his nose. Man, he thought he was done with these assholes when he got away from that sucky town. He guesses not. He picks the fat little insect bastard up and watches it squirm between his fore finger and thumb before flicking it onto the ground and rubbing his hand on his pants, as if that would do anything to rid of the disgusting germs. Great, now he had to wait to chew his nails down to the fucking cuticle, wait until he was able to wash his nasty hands or something.

His head tilts against the window and his gaze strays to the retreating form of the town that had tortured him for all of his fourteen years. Why did they even make camps for non children entities? Don't they know that teenagers don't fucking care about anything outside of their trivial, ridiculously unimportant teenage bullshit? Max finds himself wishing he had some ear buds or something, just to pump something into his skull, because he can't stand the sound of the frames of each grimy window rattling with each expanse of bumpy road.

Figuring he won't get much sleep no matter how hard he tries, he fishes through his backpack, pulling out Mr. Honeynuts, his beloved best friend. Whose eye had been removed from his head, leaving only a small, sunken hole from which stuffing could escape, had Max not carefully tape gummed it shut. There were stitch lines across his expertly cared for fur from many debacles, most familiar to an angry hand of a family that didn't care, or a boy who couldn't care. It's probably unhealthy to harbor this much love for something so menial, but… he can't help it. As much as he hates to admit it, you have to love someone. Maybe he's storing all his love inside this bear in hopes someone else will be an eager recipient one day. Or maybe he's just hiding it from the world.

He seats Mr. Honeynuts peacefully into his lap as the road disappears behind them. He grabs his lighter and starts trying to make the smoke alarms on the bus go off, only to find that this piece of shit ride doesn't even have working smoke alarms, which is extremely unnerving, but then again Max’s apartment didn't really have working smoke alarms either, so he can't say he's too worried. When he tugs on the fire truck red handle of the emergency exit and it refuses to open, Max worries a little. Then, when the windows won’t rattle open he feels trapped, like he’s suffocating.

“Hey, creepy, weird old man.” He calls, standing on his knees to pop his head over the bus seat. “You can't have thirteen different species of roach on a fucking bus and not have the windows open.”

“No roaches on Quartermaster’s bus.” The old man mutters, eyes not leaving the road that looks like it's melting from the heat and evaporating into the sky.

“Are you blind?” Max growls ferally, resting his forearms on the crushed, picked at leather and laying his head down. His eyes find themselves glued to the roaches, skittering about. There's a dead one with its green guts being devoured by ants that weave expertly between its viscera. _That's what happens to everyone in the afterlife,_ Max thinks glumly. _We’re all eaten by bugs. And we’re all sleeping with roaches._

The entire ride proves to be a new goddamn level of miserable, leaving the teenager’s entire stomach tied into a jumble of knots that haven't been conjured yet. His face drained of any color it might’ve harbored, tinged green from the impending threat of spewing his innards, rendered a limp rag doll as the bus stops and he's thrown forward against his stomach. He groans sickly, dragging himself down the aisle and down the miniature staircase, glancing at the invading, towering nature, then at the camp counselor who seems to have been eagerly awaiting his arrival. Max rolls his eyes then burps wetly when the motion only further upsets his stomach.

“Hello, new camper!” The guy says happily with shiny, pale green eyes to match his complexion. “My name is David, and I’m be your camp counselor for your stay at Camp Cambell! This is Gwen, your other spectacular, super duper eager camp counselor!” Max hardly casts a glance at the tired looking woman as he clutches his middle. “Boy, am I excited to see your amazing, smiling face here at our camp and I sure do look forward to the many great adventures we’ll have! There’s tons of activities, I’m sure you’ll be interested in at least one or two! And did I mention the super catchy camp - “

Max’s eyes water as his stomach turns one last time before he promptly spills the contents of his insides all over David’s shoes and slinks to the ground, wiping the remnants of his vomit around his mouth with his sleeve. Before the obnoxiously happy (rapidly paling) man can get another word out, he upchucks again, though he has enough sense to shoot over his shoulder instead of into his own lap. The puddle builds and seeps across the dirt, reaching the huge bus tires. The acid zips along his throat and he coughs into his hand, making a strangled noise when it only sets a more furious fire in his tonsils. The taste is vile, like expired milk and sour sweat. It tastes like the new species of mold at the bottom of that trash can. It tastes like the smell of his hair, which is extremely fucking unpleasant.

Which only means that the hoard of roaches would rush out of the bus and into the disgusting, blue-green puke, hungry for their next meal. Max let’s out a tired, overwhelmed breath before picking himself back up on shaking legs. David has tears in his eyes as he looks down at his shoes like he’s the one who just had his stomach torn out of him. That was just a waste of that expired fruit and those airheads and the raw egg he ate that morning. _And the moldy bread I probably shouldn't have salvaged from the back of the pantry._

“Well, good luck with your new roach problem.” Max breathes huskily, leaning against the bus and reaching for purchase so he doesn’t fall again. “And stop looking like it’s the end of the world, you fucking fairy, my vomit only made your outdated, middle aged shoes look better. Where’s the fucking bathrooms around this place, I have to rinse my- _my everything,_ Jesus Christ.”

David sniffles, wiping his tears. “This is okay.” He squeaks out and when he moves his feet out of the puke, there’s this awful squelching noise and a fresh wave of the stench of tossed food hits them all hard. Max grimaces and Gwen fans it away with her clipboard with her nose pinched up. David’s lip wobbles. “There’s so much. It's in my socks.”

“Man the fuck up, David!” Max barks, adjusting his backpack on his back and stepping around the puddles (and David), glancing around at the meager wooden structures with obvious disdain. “I don’t have all day. I have to find away to escape this hell, I don’t have time for your bitching.” He pauses. “Was anybody gonna answer me or is this fuckin’ nightmare of a camp going to consume me without direction?”

“Kid, what the hell?” Gwen steps away as the vomit leaks towards her own boots. “Like, what the actual hell was that? Do you need to like, lay down, why do you think that was okay? Like, new kid pukes like something out of _The Exorcist_ , let's show him his bunk, that's not - you're going to get everyone sick!”

“Listen, Gwen, I’m not sick.” He says, stepping purposefully in his own puddle of filth and then dragging it out across the dirt in a gut churning green trail. “Without naming any specifics, I’ll tell you I did something that I probably shouldn't have done before I got on that bus that probably resulted in that. Do I regret it? Fuck no. It was awesome.” _That bread was good. Thought it was raisin bread at first._

“That's extremely obscure and I should look further into that, but I’m. I’m tired. David’s crying.”

“It's- It’s in my socks!” David wails, wiping his tears as they fall. “I'm s-so sorry your first day turned out like this! _It's so squ-squishy_.”

Max sighs. This was going to be one pathetically underwhelming summer. It wasn't as much of a prediction as it was a fact. Eventually, David squelches back to his cabin to remove his soiled shoes and socks and rinse off his feet (what a pansy, _God_ ), and Gwen tosses him an annoyingly yellow Camp Campbell issued shirt, assigns him a bunk beneath some kid with a bedwetting problem and tells him to go wash the vomit smell off his breath before the campers came back from dinner.

The bathroom is lackluster and filthy, but ultimately cleaner than the one he’s frequented at the apartment which comes as no shock to Max. Though, the sinks prove to be annoyingly high, so he finds himself dragging a wooden stool over just to see past his rat’s nest of hair that would eat any comb he tried to rip through it. At his face which is just as much of a mess as his hair. Maybe if he showered and washed away the layers of grime on his body he wouldn't be such an eyesore, but he can't wash away the layers of grime on his existence. From the fucked up home life to his fucked up millennial mind. Isn't that tragic.

He breathes on the mirror and draws a dick on it, just to break the inner tension he's creating. Dicks always made things better. And tits. _God, human bodies can be so fuckin’ great_. From the brief amounts of porn Max has ever seen, sex seems to be absolutely mind blowing, but… he has yet to experience anything. Not anything he really wants. He's never been romantically inclined either. Those feelings would never even be recuperated. Not that Max can fathom favoring any of those numb skulls he attended school with.

He brushes his teeth and brushes them hard enough to make his gums bleed. If there's one hygienic thing about him, it's his teeth. He observes himself in the mirror. No one told him the zit between his eyebrows looked like a fucking active volcano. His eyes are dark around the edges from the lack of sleep, the reasons for that lack are what's keeping him up every night his body isn't occupied being used, so he's exhausted. Knit tight and tense with paranoia, bent on the idea that safety doesn't exist and the world is filled with psychopaths, useless people and suicidal kids. And sex. And fucking roaches.

He washes his hands, memories of the roaches crawling up his vertebrae with a bunch of little legs and - _SHITTING FUCK_ , Max leaps a foot in the air and twists off the edge of the stool in a graceless fall, landing flat on his back which sends a sharp pain to his bruised ribcage. Roaches flurry out of his shirt and under the stalls in a panic and a few linger just to crawl up the sinks. Max shudders hard, standing up and airing his hooded sweatshirt out. Man, he's never minded bugs, but he doesn't want them in his damn clothes. Give him a break, he has two pairs of underwear and a single pair of socks he washes once a month.

Glancing back to the mirror one more time, he regards his gruesome black eye apathetically. When he scrunched his nose up, the narrow cut along the thickest swelling opens and fresh puss beads along it, the yellow green bruising closer to the bridge of his nose looking like a nasty infection. The scab is a darker forest green and none of the colors blend well with his caramel colored skin, but Max shrugs his shoulders absently, exiting the bathroom with his hands in his pockets. It doesn't make him look like a bitch as much as it does a delinquent, and he'd take delinquent over bitch any day.

It seems his straight forward path back to the cabins wasn't straight forward enough because it's intercepted by David who drags him to some lame ass celebratory camp fire since Max was the newest member, arrived late, and didn't get the chance to be introduced during dinner. The building rage is erecting fucking finely, now. He's tearing his nails off with his teeth until the ends of his fingers bleed rawly as David introduces him.

“Now, I know that he arrived a little late and because of a scheduling issue, he wasn't able to be introduced during dinner,” David starts as the campers eye him disinterestedly, “but, I’d be so appreciative if you would be nice to our newest camper, Max! He’s super, duper glad to meet all of you and make loads of new friends during our three month - “

“Cut the crap, David!” Max says when the feeling of being observed is too much, his skin itches like it wants off of his bones (not to mention the fact that he keeps shifting because the log he's sitting on feels oddly squirmy beneath him). He stands up on the log, which unfortunately doesn't bring him to the height he desires, but it gives him a rise which is enough to work with.

“This camp fucking sucks asshole and any illusion these sad middle aged adults are trying to instill is useless and ridiculous. I hate it here and if you don't hate it here, then I’m sorry that you're mentally fucking retarded. Since those of us who are ‘all there’ are all miserable, let it be known that I'm the _most_ fucking miserable, therefore making me all superior to you wastes of fucking oxygen!” He gestures out to the camp (with a hand that is significantly smaller than his peers). “That means I fucking rule this place! Lucky for you all, I’m a kind ruler and I won’t be too much of a dick about how superior I really am.”

“Too late for that.” A boy wearing a magician like top hat with the stereotypical red ribbon above the curve mutters pompously.

“Shut your fucking face, loser.” Max bites out. “And that goes for all of you. Don't fucking talk to me because I hate you all and if I had the gasoline, I would burn all of the cabins to the ground while you were sleeping inside of them.”

He steps down from the log. “And I’m running out of shit to say, but I think I’ve established myself pretty well.”

“That wasn't very nice, Max.” David says with a sad frown. “But, I do acknowledge and value the freedom of speech our campers are given, so thank you for sharing! All I can hope for is that we as a family are able to change your perspective about what Camp Campbell really is!” His eyes are annoyingly hopeful and the teenager brushes his seat free of brown, fat bugs before sitting back down on it.

Shortly after, they're dismissed and Max finds himself pinned to the side of the bathroom by a chubby, muscled ginger boy whose cheeks are covered in freckles. He narrows his eyes at the kid.

“I’m Nerf.” He introduces bluntly. “And if you think you're top dog now, you're wrong. You're a short, scrawny little nerd with a big fuckin’ mouth on you. And nothing to back it all up with.”

Max breathes a sigh through his nose. “Ah, so you're the bed wetter.”

The bully blanches. “Wh - Uh?”

“Oh, nothing, it's just that there's a big **Nerf** carved into the bunk above mine and my mattress happens to smell strongly of piss and there's a yellow dripping stain underneath yours.” He whistles lowly. “I'm not even mad that you're a bed wetter, I’m mad that you can't cover up the tracks, numb nuts.”

  
“I. Uh.”

“Yeah, so if I were you, which I’m so fucking thankful I’m not, Jesus Christ, I’d let go of the angry kid and fuck off from now on, okay? Oh, and I’ll be taking your bunk. I’m not risking your weight collapsing the entire fucking thing and crushing me to death in my sleep.”

The top bunch smells like sweat and cheese, but Max isn't complaining because at least it doesn't smell like pee. Well. Not as much as the bottom bunk does. He wishes there were an empty drawer to sleep in because they tend to be cleaner and he won't lie, the space of a mattress is overwhelming. Halfway through the night, he's so restless he climbs down and peaks out the window, only to find the entire thing wiggling with a thatch of roaches. He shudders hard and pulls the blinds back down. He’d go as far to say the infestation here was much worse than the one at his apartment.

A hand touches his shoulder and he tenses immediately before catching sight of obnoxiously gold pajama pants with black stars all over them, the stars from that dumb hip hop musical. It's dark, but the moonlight flitting in from the shades is enough to distinguish slight features - an upturned nose, chin length brown hair and a thin smile accompanied by oddly aggressive brown eyes.

“Max,” The guy starts (he's tall, which leaves Max looking up, which is uncomfortable), “your performance was awe inspiring. The confidence and all dominating presence gave me shivers. And - oh my God, the body language was flawlessly villainous! _Ugh!_ Perfect execution.” He preens, folding his hands beside his face in a dramatically ecstatic, dream dazed look. “However, the ending was quite lackluster. You can't have that much build up just to leave the audience disappointed!” The brunette stresses violently, a complete turn in his personality. “It was maddening to watch! _What's wrong with you, Max? Why would you ruin it all?”_

“What's wrong with me?” Max responds exasperatedly. “What the fuck is wrong with you? It's three in the morning and you're yelling in my ear, you damn weirdo.”

“Ah, right.” His eyes are wide and restless, so Max wouldn't be surprised if this ended up becoming something common. “I’m Preston. Preston Goodplay, and well, who needs sleep when there's so much to do? I signed up for theatre camp.”

“That stage looks like something from an underfunded middle school play about anthropomorphic animals learning to love each other.” Max mutters, looking away from the boy and his stupid gold pajamas. “You like the villains?”

“Well, of course.” He smiles and his lips are red against pale skin. “A story is only as good as its villain. But, I don't really believe in villains.”

“That's fucking stupid. Villains are the bad guys.”

Preston throws his hands out dramatically. “Good guys, bad guys, those are the labels of simple minds, Max. It all lies in the point of view. It's protagonist versus antagonist. Any villain can seek redemption with a simple change of perspective.”

“So, the consumer decides who the bad guy is?”

“It's left for every individual's interpretation of the character.” Preston elaborates, crossing his arms over his chest and pressing his finger to his chin in thought. “Though, I guess that's any content creators aim. To make their consumers feel. Make them think and have an opinion. Or to allow people a window to a place in which you don't have to do any of that if you don't want to! It's all so beautiful, though! I just wish you heathens would understand it all so I don't look stupid spewing about it! You're all so frustrating and it's polluting my artistic genius! Can't you understand how crucial every detail in theatre is?! How much perfection _matters_?!”

“It's three in the morning and you're yelling in my ear. You. Damn. Weirdo." Max concludes, blinking his tired eyes. “Don't talk to me. I'm going to sleep. Keep… doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

“I will!” Preston says determinedly. “Rest well, Maxwell.”

He lays down in his gross bunk, thinking about that. A villain is only a villain when the consumer decides they are. Huh. It's strange to think about, as much as he hates to admit. He applies it to the classic tale of Batman and The Joker. How could someone flip the script of roles so set in stone?

Morning’s dawning and he just can't stop thinking about that. Damn it, Preston Goodplay. Maybe this is why that kid doesn't sleep. It's stupid, Max decides. It's stupid and pointless to ponder about. He closes his eyes and thinks about the end of the summer, where he will find an escape all over again, from one camp to a home where he won't feel roaches creeping across his waist like the weight of familiar fingers and like the wet wrongness thrusting between his thighs.

Isn't that a thought to sleep to.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love Preston so much he's my obnoxious dramatic theatre kid, he's my aoyama of camp camp, he's literally fucking m e


	3. . on the ready set insect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That's not the spirit you should be in, Max.” The counselor does that same sad frown that wreaks of disappointment and then aims it right in Max’s face, as if that shit would burn him. His flesh is already melted off his body and he can't be burned anymore. “Oh my goodness gracious, the bus is here, Max! Your fellow new campers are arriving!” All that Max hears is ‘I’ll have reverted a delinquent into a nuclear good boy on a leash and never have to deal with his villainous scheming again!’
> 
> It's something he's heard all too often behind his teacher’s words. And it's something that he's learned to just ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wooooooo boy, I've learned that if I just sit down and don't let myself look away for like four hours, I can vomit up 3600 words 
> 
> but this was p fun to write bc Nikki and Neil are finally brought so this is p much gonna spur the story further to its climax also I got so many good comments on this what the dang HECKIE????? Like this is literally just your local bipolar schizophrenic self projecting onto his favorite character hi hello HOW U LIVIN 
> 
> but I will say that this chapter lacks my gross depth a little and im disappointed that i couldnt fit in some more bug gore :( hopefully I'll do better next chapter ;>

Another failed escape plan (via trying to hotwire the Campbell mobile only for it to rev up violently then blow so much thick fumes out of it’s cylinders that Max was choking to death before he could even begin to crash the damn thing) has the messy haired teenager chewing his nails as David practically has him on a leash in a useless effort to tame the nightmare child. Which, even Max agrees that no camp counselor should have to suffer his god awful, insufferably sour behavior. Then again he doesn't empathize with the enemy and the enemy is quickly becoming the whole world, or at least Max’s whole world.

The overly optimistic man claims that he just wants to try and change his perspective, then be the first to introduce him to the campers arriving that day, hopefully the last latecomers to be dropped off. To make Max friends with teens who didn't have connections already, who are new and pure. Max thinks that purity doesn't exist and if it did for even a second, some corporate, heartless bastard would apathetically wipe their ass with it. Instead of voicing this, however, eyes tired from staring at the ceiling, fueled only by the coffee that tastes like mud mixed with liquid nitrogen to give it a distinctly chemical like burn in his stomach, he shoves his hands in his pocket and pulls out a fist full of roaches.

“Leave me the fuck alone.” He mutters softly to the non sentient insects before shaking them off his palm.

Though, he can't help but feel that he's the best candidate for their affectionless, irrational attraction. They're both disgusting creatures that the world would probably be better off without. Max isn't sure what roaches provide to the ever occurring ecosystem, but he's sure it's inconsequential to some extent. He's sure it's just like the lack of positivity he himself provides. How he can take something good and curdle it into something horrible. All he is is bad energy personified, a walking travesty, no, a walking fucking chaos. To be a travesty is just too soft for his ever growing calamity, his violent existence.

Amid the thoughts spindling completely out of his control into the darkest corridors of his completely fucked up head, David rambles on about something with a distinguishable positive message, one that Max feels compelled to unravel as he sinks into his daily existential crisis. It's grown to never affect him, as was the life of a fourteen year old nihilist with probably a plethora of petty mental illnesses infecting his skull like their own infestation of roaches determined to eat his sanity alive. Max decides he doesn't need to ponder this bullshit right now and can probably push his internal struggle off until he finds a way out of this hell hole. If he's lucky, he can kick the bottles of his unadulterated emotions underneath the metaphorical rug until he explodes. He's only making it worse for himself until then. That's fucking fine by him.

  
In a cackling part of Max’s repulsive, intrusive thoughts, where gore drips from every loose suggestion and his death is apparent in every reasonable outcome, there's a valid point; You’ll probably be dead before anyone will know what you're harboring.

  
It's a constant paranoia that the world is out to get him, that he’ll be dead by his own hands or the hands of someone he's found himself splayed out beneath their foot, maybe his big mouth will stretch to the size of a black hole that could consume his entire universe (his past, his present, his future) in one second. There's a million deaths befitting of him. Inevitably, the one that picks him will be lackluster, sudden, and catch him in a farce of security that Max otherwise from that single moment would never have indulged in. He's getting jittery and on edge just thinking about it. He wants to rip off his skin. He wants to seek it out before he's found. He wants to grind his teeth until they all break against each other and slink out of his blood foaming mouth with the pink gums still attached to them stubbornly. He wants to scrape the feeling of the invading hands, the roaches, and the eyes of his inescapable despise off with his nail less fingertips until there's nothing left.

“Oh, I’m so excited for you to meet our new campers!” David says in a singsong like tone, doing a little tone to accent his happiness, as if being the physical manifestation of sunshine just wasn't fucking enough. “I’d have loved for you to get along with the others, but I guess you were just too late. But, how great is it that you get to obtain new friends with a squeaky clean new fresh start! Friends, surely, will help you to see the true meaning of Camp Campbell!”

Max scratches his hair and his nubs of nails come away with his dandruff and a fine build up of dirt. He wipes it off on his pants and pushes David away from him haphazardly with a grimace. “Shove the hell off, don't ever get that close to me. What if whatever the fuck makes you so ridiculously excitable rubs off on me?” He shudders at the intruding thought, crossing his arms across his chest and tensing. “If I’m lucky, those idiots will be able to tell who not to fuck with and I won’t have to perform another precariously worded speech on a log crawling with disgusting fucking insects.”

“That's not the spirit you should be in, Max.” The counselor does that same sad frown that wreaks of disappointment and then aims it right in Max’s face, as if that shit would burn him. His flesh is already melted off his body and he can't be burned anymore. “Oh my goodness gracious, the bus is here, Max! Your fellow new campers are arriving!” All that Max hears is ‘I’ll have reverted a delinquent into a nuclear good boy on a leash and never have to deal with his villainous scheming again!’

It's something he's heard all too often behind his teacher’s words. And it's something that he's learned to just ignore.

The bus is still just as ugly as he remembers, spicy mustard yellow, one fat tire still donning a vomit stain, and it rolls to a stop with a screech that makes Max’s teeth hurt. In a rusty, patchy motion, the doors open and Quartermaster mutters a husky, “New kids’ here.” A blur of mint green whisks past Max’s peripherals (in what might have been a human like shape, but it passed too fast to distinguish more than some colors). Following that, however, is a twiggy brunet looking nervous as he glances around with bland eyes. When Max squints there's a cartoonishly large leaf green worm in the front pocket on his shirt and he's sure no one noticed if his eyes fucking bulged.

“Welcome, new campers!” David announces and Gwen is looking around, dumbfounded, in search for the mint green blur.

Max blanches. “What the fuck? Where did it go?”

A wild, almost dog like howl, snatches his attention. As well as the ethereal glow radiating from just beyond the inner camp borders, even beneath the blinding rays on the unfiltered sun and he turns to see a girl with a messy curtain of mint green hair, eyes that are inhumanly pink and widened like psychotic saucers, she's rolling in the dirt like it's her only savior in a world that's enslaving everyone who falls victim to a systematic cycle that crushes them to death (Max can admit to being apart of the natural order, even if unconventionally), but most spectacularly there's a flurry of fireflies following her every movement.

For fucks sake, yes, he's not the only one being worshipped by bugs! Nevertheless, his sour expression stays firmly glued to his face as he sizes up the new campers, as well as how they react to the counsellors explaining where the fuck they'd been drop kicked to for three months. The girl (Nikki, he catches) is a constant rebellious feral grin, all consuming, he half expects her to grow fangs and bounce off into the woods with her animal brethren. The fireflies catch in her hair. It's weird to see fireflies during the day. He’d rarely even seen them in the deepest dead of night.

Neil hunches over like he doesn't want to be seen, like he wants to lock himself in a small room with only things that interest him for the rest of his days. The worms follow him at a sluggish pace, a few clinging to his shoes, some hanging around his shoulders. It's so odd that Max isn't sure if he's being quiet because he's observing them or if he's being quiet because he's simply speechless at the new campers who are also being fucking stalked by bugs. He pulls another handful of coaches (who are whispering among themselves, speaking in damn tongues for all Max knows in a squeaky, rapid roach language) out of his hoodie pocket and shakes his hand until the last pest is flung off his bone thin finger. It still feels like they're crawling all over him. It's… unsettling in the most comfortable way possible.

He’d been mostly tuning out (listening to the sound of the bugs; the flapping of a couple dozens fireflies wings, the roaches skittering everywhere around him in patches, the sloppy, wet pull of fat worms dragging their slimy bodies across the ground) until Nikki bites David’s hand. She claims it's to ‘assert dominance’.

And for some reason, Max shivers. Hard.

It's so exciting for a reason he can't put his finger on, but his entire body is electrified and he's on fire with a hot type of energy he doesn't know what to do with when that Neil kid snaps and fucking roasts David and the extremely questionable camp founder on their bullshit. “Oh man, new kid has some balls.” He says (mostly to clarify since David still looks clueless) as he clenches and unclenches his fists.

Gwen rubs her temples and lays down on the ground. “I can't stand this place. Space kid is stuck in the ceiling fan again. Nerf is probably choking someone to death with tomatoes. We’re going to get sued.” It fades in horrified mumbling and Max snorts. Well, isn't that relatable.

Nikki grabs his arm and he jumps, panics for a split second that thankfully no one notices. “That David guy has a really short attention span, so it’ll be easy to distract ‘im!” She whisper shouts, breath warm next to his ear. There's a tingling in his stomach. Max wonders if the roaches have finally burrowed their way inside his body.

“Fuck yeah, I’m so ready to steal that bus.” Max whispers back, rubbing his hands together with an evil cackle.

“Take me with you. I’m already fucking sick of this place.” Neil pitches in and Max chews his lip at the dark look cast over his face, God, he thought that kid was an anxious little nerd. What the hell was this walking contradiction? “They wouldn't know science if it fell from a tree and hit them in the head.”

Max can't help but roll his eyes. Yeah, okay, maybe this kid is a nerd. “Great reference to Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation, genius. Bet you're real proud of yourself for that one.” Neil gets pink in the cheeks and Max grabs his elbow because Nikki’s already asking David to sing that retarded camp song. “Now, let's get the fuck out of here!”

As soon as the first strum encapsulates the disinterested campers (as well as the faculty and orchestrator), the trio bolt for the bus. He's really wishing he’d tried to fatten up a little more in his three weeks at Camp Campbell, because his lungs are heaving beneath his painfully visible ribs and he's already lagging behind; Nikki was a given for being athletically advanced and Neil really just has the long legs Max would pray for every night if he was even the slightest bit of a believer in miracles. Malnourished children aren't allowed to grow into their awkward teenage bodies, aren't allowed to be active sports prodigies built for battle. And Max is feeling the brunt of that when he glances over his shoulder to see David hot on his tail.

God damn David’s long, knobby cream fucking cheese colored legs!

“Max, you're being a terrible influence on our new campers!” David says, still managing to speak at an evenly upbeat tone even as he's chasing wayward campers in an attempt to stop them from stealing a fucking bus and hitching it to civilization.

“Oh, fuck yourself on a dragon dildo, David, your awful, impossibly fake personality is a terrible influence on the new campers!” He manages to yell back, so close to sweet victory, yet so far away. Nikki glances back and flashes a grin that gives him a glimpse at canines that could probably rip his throats out before she frisbee tosses a pin backwards and hits David square between his eyes and makes him trip, allowing Max a narrow window to escape.

Without hesitation, he pushes his scrawny body into a sprint towards the bus, leaps in and smashes his tiny fist down on the automatic door lever, effectively trapping them in. He makes quick work of hot wiring the bus after years of practice and he glances out the dirt caked bus window just once to see David’s heart broken face. He grins.

“Remember this face, Davey, because you'll never see it again!” Max calls before slamming down on the gas petal and flooring the bus into the sunset, like the end of one of those feel good, slice of life movies on ABC Family.

They're all panting, though Max’s panting sounds suspiciously like he might hack up a lung any minute, but no one mentions if. From years of being forced into the driver's seat due to one or both of his parents being too hammered to drive, he's practically an expert. Smooth sailing from here.

“I can't believe we just did that.” Neil says with a flimsy smile on his lips. Then, it falls in the same moment. “I can't believe we just did that.”

“I can't believe David could get any pastier than he already was.” Nikki comments and Max smiles slightly in agreement.

“Home free from here, you gifted bastards.” He says through a relieved exhale. “Shit, maybe those bugs actually mean something.”

He can feel their mixed confusion without even looking up and frowns at the road. “Bugs? What're you - “

“Don't worry, I have a theory about those little assholes.” Max explains calmly, beginning to adjust the seat. “I don't think everybody sees them. It sounds batshit crazy, but why would everybody just fucking ignore something so weird, right? Maybe nature’s just fucking with us, but at least it's not just me. It's you idiots too.”

“Uh, I don't exactly - “

“What the hell are you - “

Max swerves out of the road to avoid hitting a giant inflatable monkey that's probably twice the size of the bus, and of course that's the one thing that everybody’s able to see. Knock off fucking harambe.

The police say that it's a balloon that had mysteriously floated away from its parade and had just been bouncing around roads. Max pouts as David gives him annoying disappointed look from the corner of his eye. Neil is looking like he's about to shake himself apart from the anxiety of being in an actual car crash from something so bizarre and Nikki’s already trying to fling herself into the balloon in an attempt to pop it.

And the moment everyone looks away from the all attention encompassing thing, it's bounced off to who knows where. A tug at Max’s pant leg makes him look down with an inkling of annoyance, before he tilts his head curiously at the strange placement of the roaches before him. They're arranged in something that resembles… letters? He squints at the living, squirming, chirping message.

‘New friends? Firefly and Bookworm?’

Shit. That's creepy and unsettling. But… bookworm? Is that what Neil’s bugs meant? Well, Max guesses that's because he's smart. And Nikki? She's bright, probably brighter than the firefly itself. Then… what did Max’s bugs meant? Was he the unofficial king of the roaches? Accurate, considering he has yet to wash his hair since the last time he got mashed potatoes in it.

“Max, that was extremely dangerous and very careless of you. You could've gotten yourself and your friends seriously hurt!” David stresses on the ride back.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. That's a lot of paperwork, right?” He scowls before smirking impishly and locking elbows with Neil and Nikki, who are seated on either side of him. “But, hey! Get fuckin’ used to my stunts because now you've got even more chaotic bastards to deal with! Thrice the trouble for you, David!”

However, that night has him restless and back at the window from his first night there, an equally awake Preston Goodplay loyally sat beside him. (He refuses to acknowledge how Preston sitting on the floor and himself standing at full height puts them at a nearly even eye level. That kid is too tall. They're all too tall. He wants to chop their legs off. Then Max will be the tall one.)

Preston’s dressed in a loose purple pajama shirt with some faded, fancy bullshit written in cursive across the front and frilly pajama shorts that are a neon yellow and hurt Max’s eyes to look at. Outside of the usual theatre nerd outfit he wears, his wardrobe is constantly blinding and annoying to be around. But, Max finds he doesn't really mind being around Preston, as much as he ignores and teases him for a front.

“You're weird as fuck.” Max starts their conversation off with and Preston purses his lips.

“Rude. But, I can't say I’m not curious as to where exactly you were going with that. Continue, Maxwell.” Preston flashes a little smile and Max sighs, all traces of the roaches gone. He knows somewhere in his mind that they will be back.

“Do you ever apply your drama shit to real life? Like, try and stick people in little boxes with story line labels and figure out what the fuck kind of plot line does your perception of the world follow.” He looks down at his hands and observes the bitten ends of his fingers. “Just to give it all order? So the things that don't make sense, don't seem real, become fiction or some poetic crap like that?”

Golden eyes blink dutifully and Preston hums to himself, looking actually stumped as he scrambles for an answer. “Well. Yes. Sort of. I think everyone finds themselves trying to make their entire life into a movie that only they can ever view from just their own point of view. Stuck trying to figure out what they're fighting against, who or what their antagonist is, how the conflicts will be eventually be solved or if they're in a never ending cycle of a conflict that never ends. It's all about, uh,” Preston chuckles with uncertainty and gestures in a frantic way, “realism. Realizing that everything that happens around you isn't a story. It's your life, something that can never be recorded in its full glory anywhere other than your own mind and through the things you create.”

Max props his elbows against the window sill and presses his cheek to the dirty glass. “But… what if you're not sure if some things are real? What if no one understands what you're saying when you're explaining the things you see and hear, what if they all just look at you like you have two fucking heads? And… maybe you do have two heads because there's no way to verify whether it's all real or if it's just in your head. Heads?”

Preston blinks, stunned. “Uh - “ He chuckles with uncertainty again, looking a little skittish. “What? Haha. I guess if you're seeing and hearing things that nobody else can hear or see,” he looks away from Max’s piercing green eyes, “you're either a genius or a schizophrenic.”

“What if you're neither?”

“Then you're denying one or the other.” The drama nerd picks himself off the ground and dusts his hands off (it looks like it's more out of nerves than distain for the dirty floors of the cabin) and picks Max apart with his golden, prodding eyes, with a look that mirrors worry. That's not right. People don't worry for Max. He's… he's just the bad kid who doesn't warrant worry or anything other than spite, really. “And you should consider a psychiatric evaluation. Because geniuses never really deny being geniuses. Look at me! I’m proud of it.”

“No shit, you freak.” Max says, rubbing his eyes with bawled up fists. “But, I’m gonna start to test your intelligence if you're still trying to clean up that disappointing excuse for a stage.”

Preston smiles in a surprisingly genuine way. In a sad way. “Not all of us can master the art of not giving a shit. Sleep well, Maxwell.”

As he's clutching Mr. Honeynuts close to his chest, he's wondering if he could master the art of giving a shit and if maybe. Maybe he's not all there mentally.

(And in the strangest parts of his mind, he's thinking about Nikki and Neil way too fondly.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY call me beep me if u wanna reach me right over on either of my tumblrs
> 
> hinatas-bootay-dayum is my main and langst-mccpain is my writing, but either is good and fine!! u can literally just scream at me 
> 
> AND WHAT THE DANG H E CC IE I HAVE REALLY TALENTED SUPER NICE READERS AND THIS GARBAGE HOLE GOT F AN A RT LIKE WHAT????
> 
> U GUYS GOTTA CHECK IT OUT ITS WHACK do it or knock off harambe will make u crash ur car 
> 
> https://invading-art-boi.tumblr.com/post/166166954888/art-based-off-the-fic-sleeping-with-roaches-on


	4. baby now we've got bad bugs (BUGS!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Um?” Max shrugs his shoulders unsurly. “Obstacle course of doom or whatever? Are we done already? Are we not doing that anymore?”
> 
> “Well, you just had a seizure or something so,” Pikeman picks on his elbow at a green scab, averting his gaze, “I’m very uncomfortable and would be much more comfortable if you left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly im shook that they didn't give us a better look at what happened when max was with the woodscouts and also this chapter was kinda hard for me to write l o l so bare w me here

_Well, this day has turned out just fuckin’ peachy,_ Max thinks as he studies the ridiculously gruesome acne on Pikeman’s face, tied to a chair with his recently healed eye punched back to a leaking purple shiner.

“I can't believe you thought that Camp Campbell was the worst hell you could’ve been sent to, Maxi.” Pikeman sneers ominously, an awful crack of thunder following his words. “They couldn't even beat you into submission. Couldn't make you a mediocre camper, at best. You have so much potential, all wasted underneath that empty headed hopeful redhead man.”

He scoffs, fingers beginning to make quick work of the knot his wrists are bound with. “What? You think you could do it? You really think you could make me a pliant little dog when you can't even work on a good skin care regimen, you pizza faced motherfucker? I'm honest to god afraid of hitting you because I know that shit will hurt like balls when eighty five zits pop in unison under my knuckles.”

Even Snake cracks a sliver of a smile from over Pikeman’s shoulder and Max feels victorious when Pikeman gives a hurt frown. “It's a medical condition.”

“No, you're just hard to look at. Would it kill you to wash your greasy oily, dirty - “

“Enough!” The militant teenager barks, walking briskly away from the green eyed devil who stubbornly pulls at his restraints, the rope leaving bright red lacerations on his caramel flesh, proving only to burn the tips of Max’s unprotected fingers. “There's no way off this island, now. You're ours to bid and bend. To break.”

“Like hell I am!” Max snaps back, lifting his entire middle off the chair in a deep arch, staring intensely at his adversary. “I’ll kill all of you and I’ll kill your fucking families! Do you hear me?! I will fucking murder you!” The threats rip out of him without filter, in one long unending string until eventually Petrol ties his running mouth with a shirt.

 _That's okay_. Max thinks, unable to stop the saliva that dribbles down his chin and drips into his lap. _As soon as I get out of this chair, I will unleash Satan’s hell fire on all your asses. Just watch_.

However, when Max feels the familiar legs of a bug creeping across the back of his neck, he slumps back. It's hard to admit that now he's become quite comforted by the insects, now that he knows they're bigger than themselves, not just the disgusting bugs that wiggle out from beneath the fridge and gorge themselves on the accumulating rotten food by the entrance of an abusive household. He sees it all on a spectrum, a line laid out right in front of him, like dots on a stretch of time marking each event. Sometimes, when the night plays tricks on his infectious green eyes, he sees images on the wall, flickering with sounds that don't exactly match. He chalks it up to dreams, or lack of sleep causing strange… hallucinations? Just a reality that's slightly distorted played by a projector that's been fucked with.

He's pretty sure his mind just might be playing some fucked up tricks on him and he shudders at the memories as the roaches flood out of his hair, out of his pockets and his shoes, to the floor where they skitter.

 _‘The metaphor? The metaphor? A sign! A sign_!’

It's nonsensical to his current situation, so he lets his head lull back, crinkling his nose. When he raises it back up, Petral and Snake are lifting his chair and following Pikeman to some boot camp. Or something. The sounds of the demon snarling from the rooftop and the roaches whispering is making everything too static to understand. A groan escapes through his gag when they reach their destination and he's placed down on the ground, victim to an in depth explanation of some obstacle course of doom.

The sight of that amount of fire and spikes lights nothing in Max, however, there's a huge fucking centipede unfurling from around Pikeman’s legs and that's unsettling, especially when it's hundreds of legs start it in Max’s direction and he pulls hard at the chair, an inkling of panic poking the base of his spine. There's vibrant colors shifting throughout it’s segmented body, constantly moving in a never ending loop, eyes impossibly huge and yellow, It's pincers are clacking continuously and it detours directly behind Max, it's shadow looming across him and his heart pounds viciously against his ribcage, struggling so hard he's sure the rope burns on his wrists and ankles are bleeding. It’s tail flickers in and out of focus. He's seen the bugs, but never this bad.

Max has the sudden, uncontrollable urge to smash his head into a wall over and over and over as if that would rid of the beast, of the things he keeps seeing, of his awful predicament, of the whirring migraine behind his eyes.

He looks desperately over to Pikeman, who’s staring at him like he just doesn't notice the giant insect probably about to devour Max whole and only cocks his head at the vivid fear in the camper’s entire body. The centipede dawns on him and it's head worms right across his chest and he screams furiously behind the cloth between his teeth, twisting and contorting his torso in probably unnatural ways as his wrists and ankles prickle with pain.

“What's wrong with you?” Pikeman asks and his henchmen back away nervously from the horrified teenager. “Stop that, you’ll knock yourself over. It's just an… just an obstacle course.”

‘ _NO YOU FUCKING WRETCHED DEMON, IT'S THE GODDAMN PLUS SIZED INSECT DROOLING ACROSS MY FACE_ ’ He howls internally as the centipede’s legs infiltrate every part of him. He moans in disgust as it wraps around him, again, again, again in a spiral that presses him so sickening close to the chair and to it’s mushy underbelly. His face is filling with color as his eyes bubble with unrestricted fear, breathing hard against the shirt. _Oh god, I’m going to die. This is it_. He tries with abandon to push himself off, to continue to fight against it’s slick looping body, but when the warmth of the centipede’s bulbous, bulging stomach seeps into his own, vomit starts to rise at the back of his throat. He finds himself whimpering desperately at the three completely awe struck campers.

Even Petrol’s trained face chiseled roughly with apathy is softening in estranged concern as Max twists and bucks up hard, on the verge of frustrated, repulsed tears when he spins once on the chair’s leg before tumbling onto the ground and onto the centipede’s squishy body, collapsing the soft innards into it’s hard outer shell. His entire body pales when the tangles of insect are burst from the pressure, the green filth of its visceral stomach smearing across his face, his clothes, his neck. Puke finally pushes up into his mouth, that gag holding it all in as his stomach just keeps emptying. Strangled tears roll down the bridge of his nose when he's choking on his own puke. His entire body feels disgusting. He could probably scrub his skin off his fucking bones and the feeling would still linger.

Hurriedly, the campers are undoing Max’s restraints as he finds himself unable to breath and he tears the shirt off from around his mouth, crying out hard as his lungs struggle to keep up with his panic. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” He mutters to himself, scrabbling to push himself away from the rapidly decomposing body of the centipede, into the roaches that beckon him further back. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck do I even do with what just happened, oh my god.”

‘Bad choice. Bad bug.’

‘Better choice. Bookworm, firefly, king to us.’

‘Don't let them see the mister. Bad bug will get the mister.’

“Stop!” He yells wiping his face, a whole smear of tossed camp food, tears and snot coming away on his blue sleeve. “It's all too fucking loud! Leave me alone! I can't - “ Max looks over at the uptight jack asses, who are frozen with something that resembles shock. “Oh, and what the fuck are you all staring at? I’d say you’ll catch flies, but it seems like Pikeman’s ugly fucking face is scaring them all away.”

That triggers an unamused face from the teenager in question. “That was just rude.”

Max frowns, stumbling to his feet apologetically. “Okay, I’ll give you that one, it was a little uncalled for.” He stares down at the mess of his vomit only to see that the entire monster has disappeared.

The roaches are crawling all over his puke, but the puddle doesn't seem to grow any smaller. There's a floating chunk of meat that doesn't seem to have digested quite right and Max has a feeling that the camp cafeteria meat probably wasn't edible, nor digestible in the first place. Though, his fucked up body probably has a lot to do with why his vomit is chunkier than other people’s vomit. He shakes his head and looks up at Pikeman. Wow, he really gets off track.

“Um?” Max shrugs his shoulders unsurly. “Obstacle course of doom or whatever? Are we done already? Are we not doing that anymore?”

“Well, you just had a seizure or something so,” Pikeman picks on his elbow at a green scab, averting his gaze, “I’m very uncomfortable and would be much more comfortable if you left.”

“What?”

“Y-Yeah. That's too much for me.”

“But. I - “

“No, literally get the fuck off this island. There's a boat, I don't want to look at you. You're filthy and weird.”

Petrol throws Max’s salvaged book bag at the clueless teen’s shoes.

“God damn,” Max mutters, pulling the straps on, “wanna call me on being rude. Fuck you too, dude. Dirty pores, Pennywise looking motherfucker.” He kicks up dirt as he makes his way down to the docks, which are conveniently placed at the end of the ridiculously dangerous looking obstacle course.

The roaches, of course, follow him loyally as if they were a band of pets. Max glances around at the island, shuddering at a hoard of spiders he spots dangling from wry, creepily bare tree branches, then walking faster at the feeling of eight pairs of eyes studying his back. Somehow, it doesn't even register as abnormal in the slightest, even though it should. His brain feels so broken that nothing phases it anymore, it just processes anything it’s given without any justification for how it could even be possible. Giant centipedes furl around him, roaches crawl out from his wild curls, Nikki laughs and fireflies dance around her head to the tune, Max can always find a few worms on Neil’s narrow shoulders, bobbing along to the rhythm of his anxious muttering. Spiders bigger than his head dangle from the limbs of a tree that is white with death.

His mood falls further when he dawns upon the flimsy piece of work that he had been so happily boarding just a handful of hours ago. The oars await his rope burnt hands and he sighs down at the blisters and raw wounds on his skin, before he pulls his fists together hard in a series of sickening pops, the sting shooting up his forearms. Pain was just a tickle compared to death. He's suffered worst before. Max needs to man the fuck up and get over this pain bullshit. All it is is feelings, chemical compositions sending signals to his brain, and he's ignored those things for a long damn time.

So, fishing out his faithful companion of a stuffed animal and setting it beside him, Max head out towards Camp Campbell, the very place he had sworn he would escape from. In the end, he knew he couldn't leave without his associates by his side. As much as Max wanted to fuck off from this suffering and into the awaiting old person smell of a warm house he was welcomed in, he's found himself… resenting the idea of being without Nikki and Neil. Even if it is inevitable, their separation, as the end of the summer grows closer. His upper arms begin to ache even as his trek has only just begun.

Trash bobs past him and for a moment, he blinks and he's back at the apartment. The smell of something sour makes him gag, the fridge reeks of mold and rot, his dad’s on the couch with his dick out like the fucking creep he is, his skin crawls with the feeling of eyes that are the same color as his own regarding him like a meal, then the trash pile at the front door is attacked by roaches and he snaps back to reality. Or, he snaps back to present. That wasn't a nightmare of a daydream. That's the home he gets to return to when the three months are up. His mind keeps wandering as he inhales the smell of the disgustingly polluted, slightly swampy lake. If there was one thing he could always clearly distinguish, it was the smell. It's the strongest sense he has, he guesses.

There's the smell of urine, trickling down his leg as he stands in front of his classmates, sniffling as tears drip down his cheeks, as laughter rang loud in the classroom and the teacher stood dumbfounded. Silent crying that turns into soulful wailing, clutching the bear he refused to ever part with close to his chest, standing in a puddle of his own piss with soaked shorts, feeling so honestly humiliated that he wished hard that he could vanish.

Then, there's also the smell of burnt pizza. Smoke clouding up the small apartment as the alarms refuse to sputter to a pitchy screech, his older sister coughing up blood on the kitchen table as Max plays in the trash, hardly looking up because Eva was always coughing up blood. When the thick gray fog is sucked into his own lungs, his eyes water and go bloodshot, so he opens up the door and darts out into the dark night, Mr. Honeynuts clutched beneath his arm. He peeks over the metal balcony and thinks about how if he leant all his weight upon the rusted hinges, it would collapse and he would fall three stories and smash into the concrete.

Not to exclude the smell of metallic blood that has a distinctly organic copper scent as he clutches his hand over the split skin on his temple, looking at his dad with glassy green eyes that are so petrified they refuse to blink. His limbs are all trembling and his mouth is open in a perfectly circular ‘o’ shape, and the vision in his right eye is now shrouded with a brick red film, something obscenely wet dripping down his face, that's the day Max thinks he started treating his dad like a leper, stepping carefully around the apartment like any bad footing could spell death. Depending on the drug intake mixed unwisely with alcohol, it very well could.

Or maybe it was the smell of sweat that wasn't his own, making the room seem so suffocatingly small that Max’s entire chest felt like it had a rubber hand wound around it, making each breath feel like it was struggling to expand beneath too much gravity, a disgustingly perfect pressure. Perfect, possibly, in some other situation. But, as Max recalls with shocking vividness despite how long ago the mayhem in shades of criminal offense and childhood trauma had begun, he is eight years old and it is his own dad, whispering sickening phrases into his ear, phrases that no eight year old should never be forced to hear under circumstances that no eight year old should be forced into at all.

He has his teddy bear staring him in the eyes with button black ones that promise to fall out if he keeps chewing on them when he passes out. He clutches his bottom lip between his teeth as the movement behind him speeds up, his toes curl in their mismatched puppy patterened socks, a new type of knot builds in his barren, shrunken stomach. Then, it's the smell of something foreign yet horribly familiar, the smell of something he’d often detected on Eva’s breath, just beneath the smell of iron. And then the smell occurred and occurred, and the only constant had been the button eyes. The button eyes that promised Max he just had to endure, survive, until he could find some escape. The button eyes that he could focus on and not have to be aware as he’s used like a tissue or a napkin by his own blood. The dad who was supposed to protect him.

Then, hallelujah, Max realizes not all parents really love their kids and sometimes the parents are the monsters and the monsters are the only true messiah’s in a world of poverty, hate, pain and abused children from broken homes that get molested by their fathers’.

A shaky exhale reminds Max that he is really here. And the roaches are really all whispering among each other. He tunes in, like they're a radio station that he listens to when his mind isn't on the verge of falling apart. Or they're the glue holding his shattered pieces together, a cement that keeps him from drowning in his own polluted lake inside his head. They're something real, just like Mr. Honeynut’s remaining button eye.

‘ _Everyone sees? Everyone sees?’_

_‘The button comes undone eventually.’_

_‘Don't let the strings snap! Sire_!’

It's not that the teenager understands, but he processes it. Does everybody sees the things that he sees? No, he doesn't think so, the same way he's sure not everybody knows that he's spent ninety percent of his life wishing it was over, his only strength in a stuffed animal that was well passed his resting time. And the button? Well, Mr. Honeynuts is a tired soul with just one eye left, the thread always on the verge of being plucked. What happens - when the last button is lost? What does Max have then? Well, the things that he sees that no one else seems to see will always be there. In a way, they're the most comforting thing about this endless cycle of misery and death that is life.

 _What a pointless existence it is - to live without the roaches_ , Max thinks belatedly. _It must get boring hearing only your voice in your head. I, personally, hate my voice and I’m glad that's rarely the only I hear_.

His stomach growls and Max becomes once again aware that he's alive. Unfortunately. Nothing seems real and he can't even distinguish reality from fiction, so what's the point in consistently eating your nails off over the insistent question of what’s real and what’s fake? He looks forward, hardly lifting his head from exhaustion that hits him with merciless, uncannily sudden impact and groans at the expanse of water that separates him from the Camp he swore he would never see again. This was gonna be one fucking long trip.

 _‘Lay down your head_.’ One roach goaded.

‘ _Leap into the water and sleep_.’ Another encourages with twitching antennae.

A chorus of roaches demonstrate the action, skittering over to the side of the small boat and jumping into the inky lake below, not bobbing back to the surface and no bubbles following their departure. Max tilts his head, shoulders bristling with pain he tries to ignore. He's good at ignoring things that hurt in favor of taking the hurt out on others. He's one jaded fucking teenager, but that looks rather relaxing. He wonders what it must feel like to sink as oxygen escapes him at a brisk pace, watching the world disappear as he falls deeper victim to the cold, inviting tendrils of death. It must be… nice. It's awfully tempting, he must admit.

_‘Go, king. Except your doom before they snatch you up!’_

_‘The water or the unknown hands pulling you_?’

“I’ll take that chance.” Max spits with finality, shaking his head as if to fling the violently insistent thoughts out of his skull. “I’ll… keep going, for the hell of it. Uh. Fireflies and bookworms, right?”

‘ _Dumb king. Dummy, dummy.’_

_‘Isn't our king stupid?’_

_‘Fireflies and bookworms and centipedes and spiders. YUCK!’_

_‘Makes you wanna puke? Makes you wanna go? Makes you wanna sleep_?’

“No, I’ll drink enough caffeine to phase through fucking walls.” He responds with a small grin, worried wide eyes. “I just want it all out of my hair. And my shoes. I don't have a lot of clothes, okay? So, give it a damn rest.”

_‘Dummy. Dummy. Dumb dumb.’_

_‘And who should've lived, King?’_

_‘And who had the blood on their breath?’_

_‘And who did you lose?’_

_‘Who do they love? Who do they prefer, stupid king of roaches_?’

“Not fuckin’ me.” He laughs bitterly. “You've got me there. Just…” he feels the frustrated tears prick at the surface of his eyes and he pulls the oars aboard, wiping them away as fast as they appear as more roaches drown.

“They don't want me.”

 _And maybe I should be sleeping with the roaches before the centipedes crawl into my head and eat me away_.

.

“Bad news. Max is back.”

That's a familiar voice, the jaded boy thinks before he impales the oar through the floor of the splintered up wooden boat, Mr. Honeynuts tucked safely in his plain black backpack. Then, he kicks that motherfucker to hell with his small foot until it's just a ruin of sticks and he regards with distress that all of his little disciples had leapt to their tiny deaths while he was out further on the lake. As much as they make his brain toxic and peeling apart like day old meat, he hopes they come back.

Eventually, there's nothing left to destroy and Max is left unsatisfied, gazing apathetically at the ground with his hands shoved into his pockets. The world drains of color, becomes a grayscale that’s hard to look at with eyes that are so used to the light bent through a prism into exquisite blends of rainbows, even in the grossest things fathomable.

David is already standing beside him, berating him for his failed attempt to escape, interrogating him with gentle, almost mother like, nagging that doesn't light the fire it should light in Max’s stomach. He's cold and hungry. He just doesn't want to deal with it right now. The voices are a buzzing mumble like the static of a fuzzy TV screen, having dispersed with the roaches. He's alone. He's so fucking alone.

Adult, large, invading fingers curl around the bony edge of his shoulder and Max jumps as if a surge of electricity had been zapped throughout his body (one big manic shiver), shouting out a frantic, “Don’t touch me!”

Underneath that, there's a quieter, more honest voice saying, ‘Please, don't hurt me.’ Because blood is a smell that gives him a migraine that can last for days, the same way melancholy gives him a tummy ache that lasts about how long the survivor's guilt does.

“I - Geez, I’m sorry, Max. I didn't… mean,” David glances away and Max looks down at the ground blankly again, “Well, the important thing is that you're back at camp, safe and sound and - _YOUR EYE_ \- “

“Listen, _you oblivious ass hat_ , I’m not in the mood.” Max manages, hardly as his volume is so low he's not even sure if David heard anything more than an indecipherable mumble. “If you could just back the hell off for five fucking seconds and stop sucking the oxygen out of my personal space, that would be fucking peachy.”

_And I’m sorry for coming back to this place._

_Because I know I’m good for nothing_.

“I'm sorry, Max.” David does that god awful thing where he bends down as if he’s talking to a little kid and Max has a sudden impulse to deck his camp counselor right in the fucking throat as hard as he can since he's at the perfect level to do so currently. “I’ll give you some space for the rest of the night, but I’d like for you to tell me where you've been all day. Nikki and Neil came back and said you’d gotten separated and I just worried all day for you.”

He eyes the man with disinterested green eyes. “Sure. Because I’m just a ray of fucking sunshine. I’ll bet you were dying for the camp cryptic to crawl back from the underworld.”

“Now, you know I value you just as much - “

“ **MAX**!”

The unceremonious screech is the only warning he gets before he's flung into the ground at the speed of light with a weight on his chest, arms around his neck and a pressure that feels odd above his pulse. He blinks and two blurry figures come to focus - oh, that's Nikki. Oh, Nikki’s teeth are in his neck. Oh, Neil’s kneeling on his chest with his knobby knee and Max can't breathe for two completely different reasons.

Which, the latter seems to just send him a telepathic shrug as Nikki unlatches from Max’s neck with a slick _pop!_ and proceeds to shake the brains from his damn head as she talks at a mile per minute about their adventure.

“I was a girl for an entire day.” Neil says to him as Nikki finally ends the story that Max didn't even really understand. “It was strange, but I was all in it for the wyfy.”

“We learned a lesson, I think.” Nikki adds, still splayed across Max’s body casually, as if the other’s face wasn't rapidly achieving inhuman temperatures. “The lesson was - Neil is good at being a girl and the flowerscouts are all dumb.”

“What? No! That wasn't the message at all, were you even - “

“I don't care.” Max interrupts, leaning his head back on the dirt as the color floods back into the world, hardly avoiding smiling like an idiot - like _David_. “I really, truly don't give a shit. I’m just going to assume you end your ridiculous journey with saving me scraps from dinner because my stomach is going to digest itself.”

Nikki stands and digs into the pocket of her overalls, pulling out a single baby carrot and a snack pack. “Got you covered, Max!”

He rubs at the tender spot on his neck and takes Neil’s offered hand up. “Somehow, I don't think that your single carrot is going to sate my aching fucking hunger.”

Neil smiles at him anxiously and fishes a pair of keys out of his pocket. “Quartermaster is really easy to pick pocket, haha. So, what do you say we raid the kitchen?”

“That sounds like a wonderful end to a fucking fantastic day, dude.”

“You need it, Max! You're really skinny! Like one of those stick bugs! Or a skeleton! If I didn't know any better, I’d say you were dead.”

“Nikki. Shut up.”

 _"I'm the alpha now! Look at my alpha mark! Hahaha_!"

.

Freshly showered, which is an accomplishment all on its own, Max sits by the window and thinks about how empty his head feels. How much he hates the static at the back of his head, like an itch he can't scratch, which is a maddening sound.

Preston props his elbows on the window sill and stares out at the stars in a fashion so fake even someone as socially inept as Space Kid could detect it. “If you're going to be sexually active, at least be discreet about it. No need to flaunt your hickey’s like they're something special.” The theatre nerd says, not even sparing a look down at Max.

He grimaces. “God no, that's the wrong direction. Nikki just bit me earlier. When I got back from the Woodscouts’ island.”

“Wow, I didn't know Nikki was straight.”

“She didn't mean it in a sexual way, idiot. Can someone like Nikki even be sexual?” He rolls his eyes so hard they ache, though the lack of sleep did a fine job of making his vision spheres hurt on its own.

The other hums, twisting a lock of his chin length bob of dark brown hair around his finger. “I’m surprised you don't notice her coming onto you. Neil too.”

Max snorts. “Yeah right. You're delusional if you think Neil’s interested in me. Well, Nikki too, but Neil especially. That kid probably gets off to his beakers and shit.”

“You'd be surprised. I mean, we’re all just teenagers in the end. Horny, dumb teenagers who think that this period of our lives in consequential to any extent.”

“Strange hearing that from you. You seem like someone who thinks that high school is the most important part of your life. Probably because of your fucking drama club or whatever. Whatever it is you even do at school.”

Preston chuckles in a shockingly real way. “You'd think. I just know that life goes on and four years is just four years. School, then school, then school, then school and suddenly you're an adult with a life being pressure into becoming a picture perfect salaryman. It's a vicious cycle.”

Max scoffs, leaning his head back against the wall, thumbing over the bite mark with a body wracking shudder. “Maybe you're not a salaryman and you're at the bottom of the fuckin’ barrel. An abusive druggy with no life outside of being a cookie cutter root of a broken household. I know which one I'd rather be."

Long legs plop down in front of him on the ground as the brunet takes a seat on the floor. Max looks at him, studies his pajamas. White with little cat faces all over them and perfect circular black buttons. His hands itch to hold his stuffed bear and he adjusts himself on the ground instead. “Well, how did you get there? How can you change it? Do you have the will to turn your life around for the victims of your addiction?”

“Maybe you gave up. You're pretty sure your life is already set in stone and it's just hell for you on earth. Living off of money you get doing god knows what. Stealing, dealing, handouts.” Max observes the pale skin of Preston’s thigh, thinking about the lack of roaches in his shoes and the lack of diluted rainbows at the edges of the cabin. “Life sucks. And it continues to suck until you die.”

“But,” Preston says, motioning manically with his hands and golden eyes that are bright sapphires, “that's where you build what you're living for and what you're willing to manage until you die inevitably. Romance, drama, magic, and anything that can make you feel. Because, are you human if you're not feeling until you die?”

“Who the fuck wants to be human, Preston? And who finds joy in menial bullshit?”

“Well, you haven't found it yet.” He explains, standing up and sliding away dramatically, dragging his purple socks across the floor. “When you do, it’ll be instantaneous, loud, bright and beautiful! And you'll keep it forever. It just… takes a while.”

Then, he exits the cabin, off to that stage where his passion lies. And Max is in his bunk, thinking about how the best he's ever felt is in brief moments of nothing, where he doesn't exist, and then when Nikki and Neil steal food for him like they care. He rubs his raw wrists and crosses his blistered ankles, sinking into the bed that's somehow more comforting than a drawer now, somehow more home than he's ever had. It's confusing. It's such fucking bullshit.

And yet, Max still isn't leaping into water and sleeping with the roaches that called him a stupid king, so maybe he really is human. A really shitty human. And he's wondering now...

 

Why is Max alive?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR EVERYONE WHO READS THIS TRAINWRECK only like three chapters in and im already yankin out teeth lmao LIKE I HAVE ALL OF THE CHAPTERS PLANNED OUT IN MY HEAD BUT I JUST HAVE TO LIKE..... WRITE THEM........ AND STUFF
> 
> side note, we dont give the roaches love, not in my house
> 
> side side note, this is where the sexuality crisis begins get ready for this r i d e


	5. on your own from a broken home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smell is suffocating, crushing. Max is ten years old and he doesn't want his mother to fucking come near him, let alone touch him with the bone thin edges of her fraying fingers across his bruised cheek. “You threw up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  
> now that we've got that out of the way, pOsItIvE fEeDbAcK???? More at 11!!!!  
> no seriously i really enjoy writing this it's more of a vent fic than anything but i also wanna see it all the way through and nourish it and give it a good ending. And all the support??? Are u guys serious with all that GOOD NICENESS my heart can't take it _:(´ཀ`」 ∠): i only started this bc i read this (no offense to the author) TRASH FIC that just totally portrayed schizophrenia wrong and i kinda just imagined max as being schizophrenic?? he just has really bad flat effect sometimes and that's why he doesn't really react unless it's something that's specifically important to him lol   
> IM RAMBLING HERES UR CHAPTER HAVE FUN AAAAAAAA

Horror movies had never been anything other than predictably horrible, which Max could get a few chuckles out at best while indulging in such bullshit. The creatures were either too human or too mystical, the ghosts were all the same more or less, the plot twists were nothing less than typical and cliche. His first horror movie had been _Jeepers Creepers_ when he was six and it wasn't disturbing. He gazed through the college student's skull where his eyes had been brutally gouged out and blinked apathetically, rubbing his own eyes and wondering why he had wasted his time on such a boring piece of garbage.

Nevertheless, that didn't stop him from consuming horror and thriller films nonstop, searching for something that would truly strike fright into his chest and light an electric fire in his entire body that would sizzle as the terrifying scenes played before him, to no avail of course. The flat dullness of his life had begun to settle in like a bone deep rot that seeped through his pores and melted down his passionately red innards like a devastating acid. Max simply figured the real hype of horror, the peak of fear was reality all along. The real ness of feeling like this for the rest of his life. The real ness of abuse, molestation and poverty. The real ness of growing up to be just like the people who put him so deep in this sinkhole.

Really horror movies aren't going about the correct way because they're just as horrified of the looming truth. Little boys don't wake up screaming in the middle of the night with images of slimy tentacle monsters in their eyelids or pasty, haunting ghostly faces other than the faces of depressed middle aged men that they will grow up to be, ineluctably. They're screaming because they already know that they’ll hate their lives and regret not being remarkable enough to escape the unforgiving current of the average lackluster life with all of their hearts and souls. Stress will drive them into a grave. The funeral will leave their family bankrupt and struggling financially. The children will fight over inheritance because father denied death. It's a cycle that goes in a circle unless you're somehow memorable enough to become something more than yourself.

Max has been binge watching the most gruesome movies in existence for eight years in an attempt to escape the fear of living and he's never screamed so loud in his life than when he's witnessing old people fucking savagely.

In one extended exhale, his voice is scratched raw out of his throat in an ear splitting screech that drives a painful spear through his own brain, nevertheless the brains of those around his. It’s reeled from deep within like a fishing hook pulling in it’s bounty, his face brights with fresh blood from the lack of oxygen and he just keeps screaming. His entire body broke out in a cold sweat and he _screams_ , God, Max _screams_ because his dad has warm hands and it bites when his skin is subzero levels of goddamn cold, he could sit on Max and crush him into bones and skin, letting his viscera squish wetly under his weight.

“I warned you, child!” Quartermaster says in his gravelly voice and Max inhales and screams more because -

_The corners of his mouth have scabbed over in patches of puss yellow, the piss stained inside of the toilet is close enough for Max to breathe in and earn a stirring of a painful stomach ache in the pit of his insides. When his wipes his lips with the hem of his shirt it comes away pure white and Max convinces himself that shedding tears over something that's already occurred is useless. He doesn't want to feel disgusted with himself anymore. He doesn't want to feel anything anymore._

_When he stumbles out of the cramped bathroom, his mom is a sight for sore eyes. Her hair’s state rivals the knotted tangle of his own, a difficult feat to surpass, untrimmed down to her bone thin hips. The sight of her skin forces Max to look down at the filthy floor instead, study each detail of each liquid dried into the spaces between the tiles, and the splotchy unevenness of something orange. Smell is something he cannot forget or avoid and it's something that makes him cringe his nose into a pinched scrunch. There's urine, blood, vomit and an overpowering amount of sweat that has Max stepping backwards._

_“Hey,” She says and when he gets a glimpse of her teeth from his peripherals, he's suddenly desperate to brush the grim from his own mouth, “you hungry?”_

_“I'm sick.” He responds simply, wanting to run, yet frozen in place, frost creeping into his joints and freezing him to the vomit stain he's standing over. “Don't worry about me, woman, you're a fucking mess.” The words tumble out without filter and he clutches the bottom of his shorts tight in his fists until his hands tremble._

_“Not sick, silly.” She steps closer to him, he focuses on her bare feet with dirty toenails and a pale color despite her foreign descent. Sweat runs down the length of his spine. The smell is suffocating, crushing. Max is ten years old and he doesn't want his mother to fucking come near him, let alone touch him with the bone thin edges of her fraying fingers across his bruised cheek. “You threw up.”_

_Max grinds his teeth and bites his tongue, hoping his molars don't erode to hell. “I'm. Sick.”_

_“I heard.” She hums and then he studies the exposed bones in her chest, the thinly veiled plate of decaying muscle visibly to even the blindest eye. At some point, no one would have any objections to looking her in the face with a kind, honest smile. Maybe she was a petite, upstarting woman with aspirations that shined like solid gold in front of lively eyes. “You swallowed, Max. He made you?”_

_Max jerks away from the contact and nods jerkily. His composure wobbles. He wants to be held. He never wants to be touched again. He wants to let it all out. He wants to hold it in until he explodes and his pieces spatter across the walls like chunky paint._

_“I'm…”_ Are you sorry? Are you angry? Are you going to fucking help me? Are you going to stop ruining my life? _“Jealous. I can't believe you're so lucky, haha. You're a boy, even.”_

_The anger came and the anger stayed. The remnants of sympathy he may have harbored disperse into the air and vanish. He looks up into the torn face of his mother's , the woman that addiction has destroyed, the only monster that existed in the real world. His parents were cruel beasts and that was the truth. He breathes hard, and thinks about every time he's ever believed that there was hope lingering in the forgotten spaces like this apartment._

_Max shoves her as hard as he can and grinds his teeth until one breaks out of his mouth when he clacks to the floor like a pile of bones. “You should fucking die! You're disgusting! I hate you and I hope you overdose, you cunt whore!” His eyes are cold and green and she looks up at him with her head tilted, looking confused. “You should have died! You and dad should have died because you're both awful and you don't deserve to live!”_

_“I gave birth to you, fucker.” She snarls back, weak arms struggling on the sticky floor. “If anyone should die, it's you! Ungrateful faggot!”_

_“Bullshit, you dumb bitch! Go kill yourself! The world would be better off without you!”_

_“You're a piece of shit, worthless son! And no one will ever want you! I hope you choke and die the next time your own dad mouth rapes you!”_

_A cockroach skitters across the floor and across his mom’s foot and she yelps, awkwardly flinging it off of her and near Max. He looks down at the helpless creature who has landed near his red converse. It’s antennae twitch before it clambers to safety beneath the sofa. “It's only because you're too filthy for that nasty old motherfucker to put his dick inside of you.” He mutters, grabbing at the door handle._

_She chuckles childishly. It's sickening. “Remember that, Maxipad. He fucks you because he doesn't want me. How good does that make you feel? And how long until you think he’ll stop?”_

_“Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”_

_The door opens with a deafening smack against the wall, the broken lock knob prodding into a hole in the wall paper. “Don't say I didn't warn you, baby boy. I really did, Maxipad.”_

_**“I warned you, child!”** _

A hand that isn't bone thin, nor horribly calloused or deceptively gentle is placed on one shoulder, a perfect plump roughness that curls around the edge of his frame with a comforting firmness. The other shoulder occupies a slim, calculating delicate hand with five slender fingers that tug on him within insistence, neither big enough to be the hand of an adult.

“Max, stop screaming!” It's Neil’s voice, irritated with a inkling of concern that doesn't casually reveal itself in the nerdy teenager who is involved only in the pursuit of knowledge. Obediently, his jaw falls slack and his vocal cords cease, his vision fading back into the present day. The door to the sex dungeon is sealed shut and Quartermaster stands beside them in only a towel, which is tied securely around his waist. Max looks away from the elderly man’s wrinkly flesh, having seen more of it than he ever needed to see in his life.

“How did you _do that?”_ Nikki inquires with unfazed wonder, her pink eyes innocent and filled with childlike curiosity. “You screamed for like five whole minutes!”

“Really, Max,” Neil says, his hand still placed on Max’s shoulder, “your lungs should have exploded! I'm impressed.”

He sighs a deep breath. Now he has a whole new selection of childhood trauma’s to suppress. “Yeah. That scream was fucking gnarly and my throat is shredded.” _It hurts so bad._

“I told you kid’s not to poke around on the island.” Quartermaster grumbles on the boat ride home. “What were you expecting to find? Drugs?”

“Oh, close!” The ecstatic girl answers, her knee knocking against Max’s. “ _Ghosts and monsters.”_

“Are you okay?”

Max would be an idiot if he hadn't noticed Neil’s blue eyes scraping away his skin to peer into his head like a telepathic mutant psychoanalyzing his entire existence. He swallows down any overly emotional response that lies on the pad of his chewed tongue and says. “Piss off, I’m fine.”

“You're scared.” Nikki scoots closer to him and when he looks over at her face, he studies every piece of it he can salvage while feigning indifference. The bandage on her plump, sun kissed cheek and the healing wound near her chin. The pale freckles around the swells of the cheek, disappearing beneath the bandage. The natural hue of her lips with a soft cupid’s bow, that curve into a loose smile. “It's okay to be scared.” Her fingers brush his.

An electricity that can't be classified as unadulterated horror sips up his arm and surges into his heart, that gives a desperate, wild beat, then some more, one after the other. Slender fingers are gripping onto his other hand and his head snaps at breakneck speed in Neil’s direction. Neil, whose oceanic eyes are pliant for someone who's socially exhausted and on the edge of an anxiety attack so often. His lips are wry and red, wet from an anxious tongue, his cheeks are tinged pink. Nikki’s hand grips Max’s other hand.

He's always thought that being touched would never be a good thing. That he would continue to experience humiliation and violence as his life progressed in stages of cruelty, leading to a formidable finish. However, the air is cold and wet, but his hands are warm and damp from mingling sweat. When he inhales, it's the soft scent of pine trees, the cleanest part of the lake, and the mint of Neil’s breath.

“Being scared is apart of being human.” He explains, his grip unyielding, yet not forceful. “You're allowed to feel it.”

“I'm sorry for pushing you to keep going.” Nikki blurts, swinging their locked hands in a gentle pattern, getting closer to him. He's filled with the urge to hug them both, but resists, looks down at his lap as the feeling of estranged affection grows adamant, like a bundle of flowers twisting at the pit of his stomach in a rich detonation of unwilted allure. “Maybe me and Neil could make it up to you? We could put snakes in David’s underpants! Or shave Gwen’s eyebrows off!”

“Wait, me and Neil? I didn't do jack shit wrong! I have nothing to make up.”

“Obey me before I give you my alpha bite!” She squeezes Max’s hand harder and gestures at the heeled over bruise on his pulse. Then, Nikki throws her head back and lets out a spectacular howl. It continues in an atypical, engrossing chorus, as the trail to Camp Camp continues.

At some point, as the boat ricochets and leaps on the lake’s surface, Neil leans over and discreetly pecks Max on the cheek. He doesn't say anything, trepidation of tarnishing a golden moment annoyingly discernible, but is unable to hide a smile as he squeezes Neil’s hand. He’s never had any friends, so he isn't sure if this is casual friend behavior or something that runs much deeper. However, as the fireflies start to light up the sky and worms slink onboard from the boat’s edge, Max recalls how alone he's felt until Neil and Nikki gripped his hands and told him it was okay to be afraid. Even if they didn't know what he was so afraid of.

He regards the buzzing in his head with uncertainty, yet newly formed confidence. He acknowledges that nothing is normal when the voices speak in tongues or perfect English that is ludicrous, illegible, or when he starts seeing things that he's told aren't really there. Max recognizes the wrongness of this right, as he dozes off against Neil’s narrow shoulder. And he just hopes he’ll be okay eventually, even if it isn't today, tomorrow, or in the foreseeable future.

Which doesn't seem so hard if Max doesn't have to do it alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly didn't really like this chapter, thought it was too soft towards the end,,,,, but im honestly too soft so im not surprised it's also super short but that's because i didn't feel like going through all the menial bs at the beginning of the episode. next chapter should be longer and INCLUDE MY BOIS MAX AND PRESTON HAVING THEIR NIGHTLY HANGOUT SESH and also I'll try to respond to all the comments I haven't responded too when I put out the next chapter!! so flattered that anybody likes this tbh (*´∇｀*)


	6. seek simplicity, complications ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nope, fuck you.” He interrupts stepping closer to Harrison. “You didn’t ‘just kind of see it’ you saw that I had my fucking dick out and didn’t immediately turn around and walk your Ron Weasley ass away from the entire thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't even know what this chapter is good luck
> 
> WARNING FOR NAKEY SPEAK MENTIONS OF UNDERAGE AND NONCON AND STUFF BUT YALL SHOULD BE USED TO THIS BY NOW ITS ME WTF DID U EXPECT 
> 
> can't even remember what this is rated just assume it's rated N for Nobody

The roaches came back when the ache in his ass cheek begun.

After the final lights went out he found himself in the bathroom, glaring into the grimy mirror with his pants and boxers down around his thin tapering ankles. It, of fucking course, was a red patch roughly the size of a handprint (which is an obscenely inappropriate comparison, but Max doesn’t think too much of it) with purple tints around the edges that blend into his brown skin. When he runs his fingers over it, he chews his bottom lip to keep from making a sound, the night quiet save for the faint skittering of small legs and - oh.

Max glances away from the mark to see familiar insects peaking out from beneath the second stall, the one with the working lock and a piss stain larger than his fucking face on the ceiling directly above it. They have voices that whisper; more aggressive this time and he shifts his legs uncomfortably, covering up his genitals with his hands. He’s constantly reminded how much he hates taking his clothes off when random bursts of rebellion infused adrenaline wear clean off. The roaches, they whisper obnoxiously about him, filling Max with paranoia that fizzles like the carbonation in soda. He holds his breath and just tries to ignore it.

When he moves his thigh slightly to feel how the skin of his left butt cheek reacts to it, he grimaces hard and there’s several small voices cackling ; _Weak. Pathetic. Painful._ It feels like his skin is too tight and a burn infects the entire back of his thigh, his ass, his lower back. There’s a muscle deep ache like he did too many squats when the brunt of Max’s exercise is probably jumping onto tables to be eye level with David.

“What the fuck is that?” He mumbles to himself, brows knit in concern.

It’s probably a mosquito bite or something. He convinces himself, if only to pull his pants and undergarments back up over the festering pain splotch.

But, he has to wonder. How many of the bugs he sees are real? And how many could incapacitate him to this extent?

When he flees the bathroom, he manages a fleeting glimpse at his face. It looks awful, which isn't uncommon, but more dreadful than usual. His eyelids are shiny with his natural oils and his undereye bags have been colored in with a terrifying shade of red hued purple, webbing out into a sickly yellow, just laying on his cheeks. His lips are chewed, he's started growing the first hints of a patchy stubble on his throat. Beneath the thicket of his messy black hair his acne is festering on his forehead. His upturned nose is rosy even as the summer burns humid and sticky hot. Both the lack of sleep and the lack of proper meals have turned his neck into a plethora of dips and hollows. At this point, he's afraid of taking off his clothes to reveal the entire painted picture of his body. He's a sight for sore eyes and his eyes are aching.

True night dawns uneventfully and Preston convinces him to sneak out to the stage with him. He doesn’t say no, he’s not looking forward to being alone with his thoughts when the roaches aren’t in a kind mood and they’re 80% of his thoughts. It’s all apart of the game where he carefully avoids his traumatic memories puncturing the only thin drawn sheet that’s keeping the dam of constant, repeated abuse and harsh realizations and heart breaks from flooding into his everyday life. It’s already leaking tremendously. He’s scared to know what’s behind the curtain if he’s this petrified from just a peak.

The ichor eyed teenager, who is all long legs as he flounces across the stage ecstatically, has obviously held his fair share of tools despite his skinny arms with elbows that poke too sharp beneath his blushing cherry skin that claim otherwise. He ghosts in and out as Preston quietly sings lyrics from a musical presumably. Max can’t possibly imagine those concepts being explored anywhere other than some gay ass boisterous stage play with a brain dead orchestra and backstage crew feeling unappreciated behind the scenes.

For some reason he can’t accurately identify, he feels hollow and can’t stop staring absently ahead into the blanket black night, stars dotting the sky beautifully without the thickness of light pollution to blot them out. It’s a shutdown mode for the sake of self preservation. He’s taken back to nights in his dresser drawer, knowing that he’ll regret going to sleep when he wakes up crudely to lecherous deeds, on his way to thoroughly debauched. It’s not quiet, so Max is not quite as paranoid, but he feels frozen from the emptiness of his entire existence. Well, there’s that daily existential crisis, back at it again to scream in the echoing void of his desolate headspace. The day’s sweat and grime glues his yellow shirt to his skin and he's wondering how anybody does laundry around here. Anybody hygienic would be suffering. Good thing Max doesn't give a shit about smelling like a sewage pipe. He already feels like one.

At the edges of his sight, Preston carefully plucks out a rotting floor board and replaces it with a delicateness to match. It’s peaceful, domestic, but Max still stares up at the sky, losing himself further to the absurdness of his mental state, with only Preston’s voice to anchor him to reality. He wonders what would happen if he was alone out here, at night. What would he do? What atrocious thing would he do? His cheek tingles with the memory of Neil’s lips and his hands buzz still desperately clinging to the texture of their hand’s. He thinks of that affection that he’s never felt in his life. He would leave, but he wants to take them.

Max is so greedy he wants to absorb their hearts as if that could fix his own untenated blood muscle. He wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the centipedes strapped him to an operating table, pried open his chest and found nothing there. Or maybe a bundle of cold software and wires that are caught in a faintly heart shaped tangle, with many updates such as empathy yet to be installed. Maybe he’s not even alive and never fucking has been because in this moment, right now, with Preston working the night away, with the stars glistening wonderfully above him and the twisted whispers of the roaches promising him a fitful sleep, he feels fucking nothing.

Except, of course, the bug bite on his ass cheek.

That shit hurts like a motherfucker.

.

The teenager considers himself to have a high pain tolerance.

After a full day of dealing with Nerf’s over dramatic bullshit, it’s getting progressively more difficult to hide his limp. He complains loudly about that night’s dinner (to which he’d found more than a few species of fly swimming in the soup - Quartermaster claimed to be harboring nothing of the sort in his cooking. Max has never been more unsure of his own mind, but then he looks over to see Nikki trying to airplane jello into Neil’s mouth as he argues that Einstein wasn’t autistic with Space Kid and he thinks _‘Okay, it doesn’t matter, just pretend nothing is there, just stop fucking freaking people out with your sick head_ ’) to avert their easily snatched attention from his gimpy walk.

Curiously, however, Gwen prods. Gwen, of all people, who probably cares about the well being of the campers the least of fucking all. Right next to Max. Let’s just say if he could only pick three people to survive a deadly explosion out of everyone currently at Camp Campbell, he doesn’t mourn the others when their gore is found all over the remnants of this wretched place.

Anyway, as the campers are pointed in the direction of their respective cabins, she reaches out for his shoulder and he swiftly ducks out of her reach, sending an inkling of an agonizing burn down his left leg; it trembles and he has to awkwardly bend his knees to keep from collapsing. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Cut the crap, little Lucifer.” She says with a roll of her oddly violet eyes. Then, they focus on him and he decides he prefers the eye roll over the underlying unease just behind the default stoic indifference. “You’ve been with us all day. At what point exactly did you incredulously find a way to injure yourself?”

“Are you stupid? I’m perfectly fine.” He straightens his legs and glares upwards at her stupid eyes with a hardened hostile glower. Max clenches his fists anxiously in his hoodie pocket only to feel the wet abhorrent sensation of crushed insect guts worming out obscenely through his fingers. Loud, piercing shrill screeches lance his ear drums painfully; he stares ahead blankly for a moment, disassociating for just a few seconds.

“Murderer! Violent, problem child, who kills violently! Him!”

“Go lay down. Go lay down. Go lay down. Go lay down.”

“OUCH! That hurt! How dare you?”

“You’re obviously not fine. Just tell me what’s wrong so we can decide the severity of it.”

“THE CENTIPEDES, DUM DUM! HURRY UP, HURRY UP!”

“Max, are you listening to me?”

“In your hair! Check your hair? Your hair. YOUR HAIR. It’s them! Them.”

“Are you going to respond at all?”

He shuts his eyes shut hard and pulls his hands out of his hoodie to find them clean, save for marker in a ghoulish green color reading ‘ _The Centipedes Were Here_ ’. He rubs his hands together in a scrubbing motion, even though he faintly knows something that isn’t there can’t be gotten rid of.

“Max?”

She reaches for him again and Max takes a limping step backwards. What a bunch of bullshit. “I’m listening! Shut up!” He tries to pick out which voice is Gwen’s, he doesn’t want to look at her mouth. “The severity is fuck you, you sad, middle aged, hopeless woman.”

“Listen, you rude little shit, I’m just making sure the camp doesn’t get sued for your broken ankle or whatever the hell it is that has you walking so stupid.” Gwen continues. Max blinks and pouts his lips.

“The talk’s been just fantastic, Gweneth, but I can’t stomach being around someone who majored in psychology for more than a few minutes at a time, so I’m cutting it short.” She doesn’t stop him when he turns away from him. Most adults don’t. He’s not surprised by their lack of genuine concern anymore. He just wishes they’d stop trying to fake it. “Good night, don’t let the impending thoughts of how inconsequential your existence, accomplishments, hopes, dreams, struggles and hardships are in the grand scheme of the universe bite.”

Gwen doesn't respond. To an extent, Max appreciates that. He wishes adults would stop talking to him all together so that he could live without the constant fear, as well as the inescapable apathy that keeps stealing his will to live and his thoughts away. It’s a lack of control over anything in his life. What he wouldn’t give to just be able to make this all go away.

“But, you can, dummy.”

Max can. Max can. And it would be so much easier than suffering so deeply. But, he clings to the hope that things will turn up desperately, even though he promised he had lost hope a while ago. When it’s all said and done, Max is living a lie of not giving a shit about anything around him. He, shockingly, is human. And humans are cursed with such irrational emotions that drag them through the gutters and make their heart feel like singing. It’s weird to be alive.

It would just be simpler to be dead. And Max is all about simplicity.

.

After the completely nonsensical event of the day Max feels compelled to confront Harrison without crossing him. His ass throbs in disapproval with each step, needles of discomfort edging into the tense muscles of his thigh, but his stubborn pride (as well as the hapless, taught panic that laces through him mercilessly at the very thought of pulling down his pants for an adult) stays firmly rooted in him throughout the short journey to the Magic Camp.

As if expecting him, Harrison tips his head in an informal greeting, not even looking up from the top hat he’s squinting into. “Hello, Max.”

He keeps it blunt. “You weren’t trying to hit Neil with your twisted ass spell.”

“What a crude accusation.” He says, looking up with glinting eyes, deft fingers placing the top hat back on his head with the agility of a conniving cat, a condescending smirk seated on his blossom pink lips. Max feels like he’s being played into a fucking trap and he shakes his head hard in a violent left and right movement to keep the horribly homicidal voices from getting too loud.

“Crude my ass. You were looking at me when you did it.”

His eyelids slide down in an unimpressed fashion. “You’re observant. More than I can say for either of your associates.”

“Why? I was under the impression that we didn’t have enough interaction for you to fucking violate my stomach on purpose.”

“Magic is complicated.” Harrison strolls around the unsteady wooden table, practically leaning on the rotting wooden pillars until he stands before Max. He’s an impressive height in comparison to Max, which on it’s own isn’t so uncommon, but otherwise not noteworthy. His eyes are an unnatural yellow that can pick anyone apart. Max squeezes his fists shut in his hoodie pocket, relieved when his palms are still clean (by his standards at least) as they lock eye contact intensely. He can feel his own confidence wavering. He swore he wouldn’t cross someone who was obviously dangerous, but Max can’t seem to learn how to control himself when he comes across such a threatening authority. “It’s it’s own science. It doesn’t obey any of our primitive rules, laws, and understanding. It defies logic. It freaks your mind until you’ve gone completely mad.”

He clenches his teeth _. God damnit, why does everyone speak in fucking riddles around here._ “It’s sentient.” Max concludes with finality.

“I didn’t have a choice. Sort of.” Harrison breaks the eye contact, displaying his uncertainty. Max grins, holding that as a personal victory. “Sometimes I get a warning, a hint. Sometimes chaos just comes without rhyme or reason. The only thing I’m certain of is that it’s in my favor.”

“How the fuck was me puking up ribbons, rabbits and magical fucking bullshit in your favor?”

Harrison seems caught slightly off guard. The look passes and is replaced with something sheepish and sour. “I saw your… infection. I was disgusted with you.”

“My what?”

His lips pinch into a line and his volume sinks with every word. “I… witnessed you, uh. O-Observing yourself? In the bathroom mirror some nights ago. And the discoloration, that’s an _infection_ caused by - “

“God damn it!” Max curses loudly, frustration painting his forehead and cheeks vivid red. “You - You fucking _creep_! What the hell!”

“I’m sorry!” His voice sounds shrill in Max’s ears, hopefully with a sense of guilt. “I had to pee, okay?! And you were there, i - it was late, I just kind of saw it - “

“Nope, fuck you.” He interrupts stepping closer to Harrison. “You didn’t ‘just kind of see it’ you saw that I had my fucking dick out and didn’t immediately turn around and walk your Ron Weasley ass away from the entire thing. Of course fucking not!” Max takes another step closer, backing the other into the table. The voices are cackling with excitement, urging him on. The impulse to just maim this - this fucking weirdo is so difficult to fight. He’s so tired of things being difficult for him. He’s tired of being looked at, of being touched, of feeling, of not feeling real, of complications. “No, of. Course. Fucking. Not. You stood and just observed me observing myself, took a real good look at my ass cheek discoloration and did a little mental run through of possible diagnoses, right? _You’re not a fucking doctor, asshole_! That’s not what that was! That was you looking at me with my pants down like - like a fucking perverted freak!”

“I have Mysophobia!” Harrison shrieks, flailing his arms and scooting up on the table for distance. “And the infection was from your lack of proper hygiene! So, I - I might’ve thought about it a lot. Our bunks are so close and - and I couldn't stop thinking about you. And you were the only person my magic wanted to affect, then.”

Max exhales and grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. He casts a fleeting glance towards Harrison’s hands, which are clad in pristine white gloves as per usual. It would definitely explain his lack of taking them off and the almost unsettling cleanliness habits. To an extent… Max has to empathize with this fucking weirdo. This rotting, germ infested camp must be hell on Earth to someone afraid of germs. “God damn it, I can't hit you.” He growls out through his teeth.

“And my parents are doctors, so I could immediately recognize that it wasn't a bug bite. Mosquitoes don't cause that much discoloration and if it were a spider, which is the more believable route, there would be puncture holes from their fangs and more worrying symptoms.” Harrison slowly relaxes from his seat on the table, long legs slung over the edge. “Dizziness, nausea, fatigue, etcetera. Bed bugs and fleas aren't an option either, even an allergic reaction to them wouldn't leave a mark like that. Your limping also points to a muscle deep infection. And it wasn't so hard to believe that it was from being unsanitary since you rarely use the showers and probably sit on the toilet seats.”

“Stop talking.” Max cuts him off when he sees Harrison only paused to take a breath. He massages his temples when an oncoming headache stirs and the buzzing, like a toaster about to explode, begins. Harrison isn’t a conniving cat. He’s a fucking pussy, just as scared of any signs of dominance as any other nerdy teenager. Fuck his magic. Fuck the ribbons and fake flowers and the milk with the newspaper. Max will be coughing up white doves for some weeks and he just feels insulted that he’s been ripped in half and punctured by this fool. “Just… shut the fuck up for a second.

A second is about how long of a period of silence he's blessed with. “You need to go to the ER and have them prescribe you an antibiotic to fight off the infection. It won't go away otherwise.”

“Harrison, just. Just stop fucking thinking about it. It's not contagious, and I’m rarely ever near you, so if you forget I exist and magically make all memories of me vanish from your head, I’ll call this confrontation a win.”

“... That's worrying.” Harrison says with a small smile. “Most people would freak out and seek medical attention if they knew they had an infection.”

Max is mortified for a moment, imagining pulling down his pants in front of an adult willingly. David. Gwen. Some doctor that he doesn't even know. Nurses that he doesn't know. He vividly pictures bending over a cold table with a paper sheet on it and the fluorescent light pouring over his - “ _Nope_. Nope. Nope.” He shakes his head and starts to walk away. “You made me throw up because of Magic and you being a creep and that's all I need from this.”

“B- But - “

“ **Nope**!” He says, loudly because he's reached a distance that Harrison probably struggles to detect a normal volume. “Nope.” He mutters to himself, just for a sense of definiteness. Instead, however, Max finds himself spiraling into a canyon of memories he could definitely go without, only able to panickedly turn a corner and duck into the blissfully empty and lockable Quartermaster’s Shop back room before he sinks to the floor, expressionless -

_That day at school, Max took his seat in the back of the classroom silently with a face that could only be described as empty. Void of anything to read or study, just green eyes that stared blankly ahead at nothing in particular, a mouth that was slack and loosely frowning defaultly, and an upturned nose that should've been scrunched up at the disdainful school atmosphere. His usual vivid anger, however, was nowhere to be found, the familiar flame extinguished so quietly that no one could even have a hint before Max’s world slowed to a stop._

_He was allowed just a pocket of time to not feel a thing, the time in which he was supposed to be so torn apart by the dreadfulness of his life had been erased. They prolong the inevitable at a torturous pace. His tongue pokes out of his mouth to prod at the scabs at either corner of his lips, the healing remnants of his own unraveling. The teacher’s voice is a drone and Max, in his zombie like comatose, does not interrupt or contradict her without the motivation or awareness to do so. He feels like he's floating just outside his body, observing. His entire head is blank save for the constant track on repeat of being on his knees before his dad as the realization crashes into him like a bag full of rust red bricks._

_It was such a strange place to be. He hears the familiar voices, but doesn't register them. He nods his head not having understand a thing being said to him. He sits at lunch and reflects on the taste on his tongue that he couldn't seem to scrub out. The taste of his mom’s envy and his dad’s DNA. He looks ahead at the kids that surround him, but he doesn't see them. He sees the butterflies and light that surround them, the ever present glow emitted from their pampered skin. He sees clean children, breathing clean air and being clean among the finer things in life. Loving families. Alive siblings. Typical struggles._

_Then he looks down at his hands and his eyes blow wide at the sight of his skin, which is caramel dark and creamy, but a fog that shrouds his sight radiates from him. He runs those hands down his face and breathes in their clean air, but it exhales gross and swampy. He touches his tongue and the saliva that links his fore finger and thumb is black like something that the undead drips or tar. People stare at him with judgmental looks when he grinds his teeth and sweats profusely, but Max can't concentrate on them. The tooth that chipped yesterday falls out of his mouth and clicks onto the lunch table. His lips drip blood and he's filled with darkness, he can feel it under his ribs. He's been polluted and he's been touched and violated and now he's gross. They're all clean and he's just gross. He lives in a gross apartment with gross parents and gross things in his mouth and a gross attitude and he knows he’ll never be fucking clean again. He probably never was._

_He keeps grinding his teeth, mounting bitterness growing. What did he do to deserve such a life? This life that he lives so unfortunately? His face twitches as it tightens into a scowl. What did he do to be allowed into the darkest part of the human life? To be stained? To be ruined? To be violated? What was life if not a constant cycle of misery and pain? More people stare at him, but he doesn't fucking care. They can stare at him and stare at him hard with their fucking eyeballs straining but not the brightest scholar would ever disassemble him. In the darkest parts of him, he wants to slam his head against the lunch table until every thought stops and his face is a unidentifiable massacre, and deeper down, he wants everyone to feel exactly like him. Disgusting, dirty, filthy Max that no one likes._

_At this lonely lunch table, he tangles his fingers into his hair, slumps down in defeat solemnly. He doesn't stop wishing that they would feel as repugnant as himself. He does however realize that few other people would live this life willingly, knowing that escape lies in a brisk ending. He realizes that as he deteriorates at the most torturous pace through his home life and the educational system chewing him with determined jaws, hope was futile and struggling useless._

_Max is nine years old and he's seriously debating suicide for the first time._

_“No,” he says to himself, for self reassurance, “nope. Nope.” It's not that he’s denying he’ll kill himself in the most violent and disturbing way possible. He's just telling himself to stop thinking of that._

_So, Max shoves his emotions deep down. He sticks a wad of gum in a girl’s platinum blond white girl hair and watches as she breaks into tears with the effort to remove the sticky pink clump. In a way, he’s taking just the smallest steps in showing these assholes what the world really was._

_It always takes a suicidal elementary schooler to remind humans that it only gets worse._

_And the tooth fairy did not come that night. The roaches did, when the monster left him to rot. The monster. The monster? Well, you could call him that. A monster of a man who -_

“Nope.” Max tears his nails across his neck, the flaring pain of his ass and across his skin enough of a wake up class to have him breathing in real time again, “nope.” The collapse of his mental state could fucking wait. While Quartermaster’s still doing only God knows what, Max decides he’ll deal with his problems his damn self and make sure Harrison is the only one to know what’s wrong. He steals a hand full of useless things (or things he doesn’t use often) ; shampoo, body wash, coconut oil, a bar of soap that smells oddly like a blue raspberry airhead. He remembers the guy from the gas station. He misses that guy.

The camp’s showers are not unlike the locker-room’s in a high school, with puny stalls and only a curtain with two rings broken off to protect you from the judgemental eyes of your peers. Max has never used one of these things before. Not when he puked the first day he arrived at Camp Campbell. Not when he came back from Woodscout hell. Not in seventh grade when his class was made to run the mile in dizzying hundred degree weather and some girl up chucked in his hair. As an added precaution, Max removes the already (mostly) broken off door from one of the changing stalls and places it over the curtain. He’s short enough that he can hardly see over the half walls of the showers, which isn’t the most comforting thing in the world, but he takes off his clothes and tosses them beside his change of clothes, just outside his shower.

In and out, he reminds himself as he places his hand on the shower knob. Just. In and out. He holds his breath and turns the knob and nearly chomps through his bottom lip with the pain that hits his infection from the water washing over him. It’s enough to make his green eyes watery, he leans on one of the walls with his knuckle in his mouth and an arm around his middle. _Holy SHIT I really need to shower more_.

Max begins the taxing process of washing his hair. There’s just so much to wash. On top of needing to update his hygiene regimen, he also needs to cut his hair. He’s sure if the humidity of the summer didn’t keep the curly mess of tangles in an afro-like state, it’d be shoulder length and absolutely filthy by now. He turns around to face the mirrors and blinks at his reflection, pushing his soap sodden, soaked hair back away from his face. He’s… not used to seeing his face clean. He touches the cheeks with his hands and wipes away the water. What haircut would he look good with? Maybe he wouldn’t get it cut super short. He could have a ponytail or something cool like shaved sides. He tries a small, loose smile that has a catlike curl at the corner and combs the raw tips of his fingers through his hair, getting caught in the tangles.

He scrubs his skin with the soap and body wash, both of which smell fruity. When he looks down at the water swirling down in the drain, it’s a mix of brown and red. Max isn’t completely sure if that’s all from his body or if it’s just from the dirty floor. The buzzing in his head is chased away by the gentle sound of the soft water pressure hitting his flesh and the tiles. He’s not sure if he likes it, but the smells are a special type of luxury that has his ever tense muscles loosening and his pinched features going limp. The infection is tender to the touch and burns intensely when he washes his back and hind, but he knows that just like getting a vaccination, it has to be done. (Except, it’s been awhile since he’s been vaccinated.)

Max isn't sure how much time passes, just sure that he watches the water go slowly clear and shivers so hard his teeth clack together when he switches the shower knob off. His upper arms tremor when he moves the stall door out of the way, only to find that his clothes he’d so delicately folded and placed on a moderately clean sink are nowhere to be found. For a moment Max just stands there, naked, dripping wet letting that soak in. A few minutes pass.

Something nudges his bare foot and he looks down to see an impossibly long centipede wriggling over his toes; Max can't even muster enough of a reaction to withdrawal from the bug. It stops when it curls around his thin ankle and looks up with beady black eyes. It's pincers open.

“You're naked.” It says to him.

Max lets out but a sigh. “I'm naked.” He confirms, tightening his wet hands uncomfortably. “I'm… I’m naked.”

“Your fault.” It says to him.

Max doesn't even consider it for more than a split second. “My fault.” He can't expect to be the worst camper by a large margin, more awful than even Nerf, and be shocked at the repercussions. He's not allowed to. This is a classic game of what goes around comes around. “It's all my fault.”

“Give up?” It asks, gaze still locked on the clothless teenager.

It seems like such a minuscule thing to give up over. Look at the twin from _Parent Trap_. She walked her naked ass out into the campsite and got her clothes back her fucking self. She, of course, didn't get molested at age eight, wasn't showering for the first time in a month, wasn't battling crippling mental issues pertaining to lack of trust and didn't come from a severely abusive household. Not to jump to conclusions, but she's a character in a dumbass movie with a corny ending and ceased to exist when the end credits rolled over a black screen. Max has to continue to exist. He smiles down at the centipede who leaves it’s place at his ankle to instead worm across the bathroom tiles in a nonsensical pattern, brows lowered sadly. No, maybe that was his choice. Suicide was always an option.

In a way, it's not about the small things. It's not about having his clothes taken while he was in the shower, not about puking ribbons or some petty infection that hurts to touch. It's not about the sleepless nights, the awful body image or the home he gets to go home to if he doesn't contact his grandmother before the summer ends. It's everything plus the lack of anything to hold onto. If he carefully clips those he's attached himself to, if he stopped himself from polluting others with his filth so selfishly, he could… he could sleep. Max just wants to sleep when the day comes to an end. He's tired of staring at the ceiling blankly with swollen eyelids and the fucking roaches crawling all over him. He can't even sleep with the roaches when he's drowning so far into the deep.

“Not yet.” He whispers, closing his eyes softly. “Not yet.” Not yet, to push it off a little longer for fear of ultimate, irreversible regret.

It, however, is not a ‘ _Nope_ ’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT SEEMS SO INCOMPLETE ACK but this chapter was stretching on so long that I had to split it into two parts so the next one should be close?? Anyway, I hardcore bc Harrison as a mysophobe and it's entirely plausible that it was legit just an accident that Harrison Fucked Max Up but it ran with the idea of the Ass Infection™ so this happened. Also, no one ever really writes about the consequences of awful hygiene??? Like I'll hand it to some of u all, you got ur mc skipping a shower, not brushing their teeth, whatever (which on its own is rare to find tf) but do you know what happens when you don't have good hygiene??? Your body says Fuck No ok like if ur gonna have a character who struggles to maintain their hygiene for whatever reason you have to make it accurate/realistic. Not saying you have to give them horrible bacteria infections or be gross like I did but,,,, u know. Idk it just annoyed me and I remembered this fic existed an I ˚✧₊⁎❝᷀ົཽ≀ˍ̮ ❝᷀ົཽ⁎⁺˳✧༚ INSPIRATION~~~~~
> 
> AND HOW IS EVERYBODY SO KIND TO THIS TRAINWRECK OF A FIC????? ITS SO GROSS AAAAA THANK YOU ALL!!! I APPRECIATE EVERY SINGLE COMMENT IM JUST BAD AT RESPONDING BC IM A DUMMY :'> I'm literally so shook because it doesn't seem like fandoms usually favor realism yanno!!! :0 like they'd rather make everything aesthetically pleasing and cute and not include real struggles. I don't really like all that bc it makes people who have real life struggles doubt themselves/feel like they're the only one going through the grossest part of life :( AND IT ISNT TRUE!!! I just want more of my favorite characters bein nasty and slowly getting Clean™
> 
> I'm rambling, but asdfghjkl thank you all for supporting me it means the world to Lil ok self projecting me


	7. what’s up FUCKERS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a broadcasting!! will YOU be controlled??

hey its your local dumb bitch speaking 

 

im sorry that i haven’t updated, i’ll get to it, ive just been struggling a lot with school and mental health and family hahahaha :’> 

 

ive started the next chapter, but I might rewrite it bc you can just let from the vibe of it that is was all extremely forced, that I was uninspired and it’s just so bitter to lay my vision spheres on

 

im doing this little personal update w all of my Big Boy Fics, but this one is gonna be a little (lot) more personal bc its a vent fic taken too far. yall know im schizophrenic and perpetually annoyed at misrepresentation, which is why i made maxie boy schizophrenic, and lately my heads been Bad™️, so I’ve just kind of been in and out of reality. I’m having a lot of trouble distinguishing dreams from the real world and daydreams from like actual things. And it’s affecting my sleep too?? Idk it’s terrifying.

 

As well as having agoraphobia and schizoid personality disorder, the worst case scenario is being admitted to a psych ward. I’m already extremely uncomfortable being outside of my house for more than one (1) hour, and I hate communicating with people, so a psych ward is like. Bleh. Idk. I don’t think I need to go to one, but with my current living situation, I can’t always get to my psychiatrist and it would make it a lot easier to monitor my mental health and see what the FUCK is up kyle 

 

i just have a bad feeling that it’ll make everything worse. It’s like “hey this boy who gets physically exhausted pretending to be interested in other humans and metaphorically bleeds out of his eyeballs everytime he has to go grocery shopping should be around a bunch of strangers in a new environment for a couple weeks” does that?? Make?? SENSE?? 

 

okay well im done talking lol. To sum it up, I may be taking a month long trip to the end of the world and a new chapter is like second on my list of priorities, first is having a seizure. I’ll try to respond to comments today but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ also, you’ll know when I start working on the new chapter bc I’ll have deleted this little personal update. k peace benches

**Author's Note:**

> HA i love killing my faves also sorry if it seemed rushed hop off my dick school is slaughtering me and also I'm a slut for those comments, feed this hoe for another night please


End file.
